



Book 



^ 



-Hsy 



PRESENTlil) liY 



The Premises and Significance 

of Abraham Lincoln's Letter 

to Theodore Canisius. 



BY 



Fi I. HERRIOTT 

Profensor of Economics amd Political Science 

DRAKE UNIVERSITY 

Des Moines 




Reprinted from Deutsch-Amerikanische Geschichtsblatter 

Jahrbuch der Dcutsch-Amerikanischen Historischen 

Gesellschaft von Illinois — Jahrgang 1915 

(Vol. XV.) 



US'] 



THE PREMISES AND SIGNIFICANCE OF ABRAHAM 
UNCOLN^S LETTER TO THEODORE CANISIUS 

By F. I. HARRIOTT. 

Professor of Economics and Political Science, 

Drake Uniz'crsity, Des Moines. 

I was anxious to speak with yon on politics a little more fully 
than I can well do in a letter. My main object in such conversation 
would be to hedge against divisions in the Republican ranks generally, 
and particularly for the contest of 1860. The point of danger is the 
temptation in different localities to "platform" for something which 
will be popular just there, but which, nevertheless, will be a firebrand 
elsewhere, especially in a national convention. As instances, the move- 
ment against foreigners in Massachusetts ; * * * j,-, Ohio, to re- 
peal the Fugitive Slave law. * * * In these things there is ex- 
plosive matter enough to blow up a half a dozen national conventions, 
if it gets into them. — A. Lincoln to Schuyler Colfax, July 6, 1859. 

In its issue of May 25, 1859, The Daily Express and 
Herald of Dttbuque, Iowa, the most influential Democratic 
paper in tihe state at that time, contained the following racy 
editorial article, the product probably of the editor's own pen, 
Mr. J. B. Dorr's : 

The Leaders Panic Stricken 

A class "in definitions" was reciting its lessons in 
school once upon a time, where we were present, when 
the word "panic" fell to the lot of a boy who had a good 
deal of native talent, but was rather negligent of his 
studies. This little fellow abhorred the idea of an ap- 
pearance of failing and would always say something 
whether right or wrong. The teacher repeated, "John 
define 'panic'." John hesitated a moment as if collecting 
his thoughts, and then spoke up, — "Panic, Sir, Yes, Sir, 
panic is a dog running most scared to death, with a tin 
pan at his tail." 

This boy's definition of panic was forcibly brotight to 
mind yesterday in looking over a number of our Repub- 
lican exchanges in which we observed the panic struck 
running and dodging of the Republican leaders of the 
Northwestern states. Their alarm is awful, their fright 
is complete, and they are "running most scared to death," 




as if they were precisely in the predicament of the boy's 
dog. 

The "tin pan" effectively attached to the "narrative" 
of their party is the proscriptivc action of Republican 
Massachusetts and her placing naturalized white men be- 
neath the Negro in political rights. In Massachusetts the 
party of shams is strong enough to be independent of 
the German votes, but in the Northwestern states this is 
not the case. Hence the leaders here are panic stricken, 
lest the action of their party in that state excite disaf- 
fection in the minds of intelligent and honest Germans of 
this region. 

In order, therefore, to prevent this result, these 
frightened leaders are just now performing some tall 
feats, by way of endeavoring to run away from the 
thing of terror which eastern Republicanism has firmly 
fastened on their party. They cannot do it, however. 
The more they run the more frightened they appear to 
become, and do all they can, they still feel the dreaded 
thing clinging to their cowering carcasses — they fear it 
will be the death of them, and probably it will. 

The first symptoms of terror among them in this por- 
tion of the Union, were shown by the "Republican State 
Central Committee" of this State, in their issue of a set 
of resolutions condemning the action of their Massachu- 
setts brethren in the name of the party in Iowa. — This 
document was followed by letters from the Congressional 
delegation. About the same time with these the panic 
began to operate among the leaders in Illinois and Wis- 
consin, and it has increased until the present time. It 
now seems to be at its highest pitch, and the whole brood 
of Republican leaders from Lincoln down to Wentworth 
are uttering their disclaimers, issuing letters deprecatory 
and denunciative, and presenting to the mind's eye the 
picture of a hundred howling curs in the same predica- 
ment as the boy's panic stricken dog. 
Well, it is none of our funeral. * * * 
The panic thus particularly referred to by Mr. Dorr's pa- 
per was the nation-wide disturbance produced among German 
Republicans and in consequence among the leaders and man- 
agers of the Republican party by the proposal and final adop- 
tion on May 9th in a state referendum by the people of Massa- 
chusetts of what was currently called the "Two Year" Amend- 

— 2 — 






ment to their constitution, whereby the right of voting and hold- 
ing office in the Old Bay State was denied to the foreign-born 
until they could certify a residence within the United States 
of seven years with naturalization as a prerequisite therein. 
Mr. Dorr's caustic comments, while strong and sweeping, were 
in fact not without warrant. 

The sudden display of energy by the Republican leaders of 
Iowa and Illinois during April and May in direct and obvious 
attempts to placate the German voters indicated that the party 
chiefs experienced a degree of anxiety and perplexity so ur- 
gent as to approximate panic. The developments in Iowa and 
the aggressive measures of the Republican leaders west of the 
Mississippi attracted general attention, and as the narrative 
will displa)^, produced the urgency and specific developments in 
Illinois. Within two weeks of the publication of the resolu- 
tions and letters of the leaders in Iowa, sundry resolutions, 
and explicit and emphatic statements were given forth in Illi- 
nois by seven of the foremost leaders of the Republican party, 
each declaring hostility to the principle and policy of the "Two 
Year" Amendment of Massachusetts. 

Mr. Dorr's editorial exhibits another fact of no small 
significance. His specific reference to Abraham Lincoln and 
the mode of the reference signalize in a definite and sub- 
stantial fashion the high altitude of his interstate reputation 
and the marked consideration given his views and actions out- 
side of Illinois a year before he was nominated by the National 
Republican convention at Chicago, May 18, 1860. Mr. Dorr 
was an editor with no little influence among Democratic par- 
tisans. It was to him Senator Stephen A. Douglas addressed 
a noteworthy letter on June 22. 1859, stating the terms on 
which he would consent to be a candidate for the Democratic 
nomination for the Presidency before the Charleston conven- 
tion ; and he had a keen eye for the major facts and per- 
sonalities in the impending political campaign. 

The occasion of ]\Tr. Dorr's reference to Abraham Lincoln 
vras the publication a few days before in the press of Illinois 
and Iowa, of a letter to a fellow-townsman of S])ringfield, Dr. 

— 3 — 



Theodore Canisius, editor of a then recently established Ger- 
man paper, Illinois Staats-Anzeiger. Mr. Lincoln's letter was 
written in response to some particular inquiries addressed to 
him by a committee of Germans of that city with a view to dis- 
covering his attitude towards the principle of the "Two Year" 
Amendment. The letter had a double, if not a triple, signifi- 
cance. The writer's distinction by reason of the national fame 
he had achieved in his debates with Senator Douglas in 1858 
made any expression of his on matters in controversy in 
politics a fact of general interest. It was significant because 
Mr. Lincoln was not accustom.ed to indulging in epistolary ef- 
fusions, being more than ordinarily cautious in this respect. 
The exigency that would elicit such a letter, Mr. Dorr could 
easily discern, was nothing else than the threatening belliger- 
ency of the Germans. The letter was extensively reprinted 
in the Republican press of the country, both German and 
American papers publishing it entire. 

The letter to Dr. Canisius became, in the present writer's 
judgment, a primary fact, and perhaps the major fact, in the 
production of that favorable state of mind among the liberty- 
loving, progressive Germans that caused them to be reconciled 
to. and instantly to applaud the nomination of Mr. Lincoln for 
the Presidency by the Republican party a year later. The sub- 
stantial truth of this assertion is clearly indicated in the fact 
that immediately upon the reception of the news that Mr. 
Lincoln had been nominated at Chicago the Republican and 
Independent press throughout the country, both German and 
American, very generally reprinted the letter entire ; with the 
positive assertion, or with the implication, that the Germans 
and the friends of the foreign-born had therein indubitable 
proof of the liberality of the Republican candidate for the 
Presidency on which they could rely with confidence respect- 
ing his course, should he be elected, in matters of legislation and 
public policy affecting the status of the foreign-born. 

In what follows the premises of Mr. Lincoln's letter to Dr. 
Canisius will be exhibited. Two major objectives are chiefly 
contemplated : first the demonstration of the causal relation of 
prior developments in Iowa to the formulation and publication 

- 4 — 



of Mr. Lincoln's letter; and, second, the exhibition of ante- 
cedent and collateral developments in Illinois that produced 
the concentration which constrained Mr. Lincoln to reply to 
Dr. Canisius. 

The important facts as to the origin and nature of the dis- 
turbance produced among Republicans in the northwest states 
by the adoption of the "Two Year" x^mendment in Massachu- 
setts, and the range and significance of the agitation resulting — 
especially as regards Iowa — have been given by the present 
writer in considerable detail in previous pages. ^ The facts 
therein presented are assumed in the ensumg- exposition. Some 
of the more important facts as they affect the matter in hand 
will be briefly restated in order to indicate the premises of the 
probability of the general and particular connection between 
the developments in Iowa with the immediate developments in 
Illinois. 

I. 

On the morning of April 20, 1859, the political horizon of 
Iowa displayed no serious sign of storm or portent of gather- 
ing cloud. Nevertheless, the currents had for weeks been nm- 
ning rapidly and converging, and concentration had taken 
place some days before. The Republican State Central Com- 
mittee, composed of seven party leaders from as many different 
sections of the state, on April 18, at Des Moines, agreed upon 
a series of resolutions condemning in the most downright and 

* See the writer's "The Germans of Davenport and the Chicago 
Convention of 1860." Deutsch-Amerikanische Geschichtsbl'dtter for 
July. 1910, vol. X, pp. 156-163. Also Ihid, "The Germans of Iowa and 
the Two Year' Amendment of Massachusetts," ibid. Jahrgang 1913, 
vol. xiii, pp. 202-308. Also, ibid. "The Germans in the Gubernatorial 
Campaign of Iowa in 1859," ibid, Jahrgang 1914, vol. xiv, pp. 451-623. 

In a paper read at the annual meeting of the Illinois State His- 
torical Society, in Evanston, May 17, 1911, entitled "Massachusetts, 
the Germans and the Chicago Convention of 1860," the writer dealt at 
length with the general effect throughout the country of the adoption 
of the "Two Year" Amendment in Massachusetts and its direct bear- 
ing upon the decision of the Chicago convention. The paper was 
reserved from the Proceedings by the writer and is not yet published. 

— 5 — 



outright language the Legislature of jNIassachusetts for the pas- 
sage of a proposal to amend the constitution of that Common- 
wealth, which would exact a two years residence after naturali- 
zation of all foreign born who should thereafter desire to ex- 
ercise the franchise and hold office. Although the resolutions 
were formally agreed upon at Des Moines on the 18th, there 
are a number of reasons for suspecting that the Chairman and 
some of the members had met at Davenport in the two weeks 
preceding and conferred upon the advisability of such an ex- 
pression, being prompted so to do by the increasing discontent 
among the Germans of eastern Iowa and their evident bel- 
ligerent disposition in respect of the act proposed in Massa- 
chusetts. 

The resolutions of the State Central Committee were pub- 
lished at length on April 20th, in The Weekly lozua. Citizen at 
Des Moines, John Teesdale, editor and State Printer. Ac- 
companying the resolutions was an extended Address, "To 
the Republicans of Massachusetts and of the Union," signed 
by the Chairman, Mr. John A. Kasson, a resident of Des 
Moines. He probal^ly was the author of the resolutions as 
well as of the Address. The Address was a vigorous indict- 
ment of the principle of the "Two Year'' Amendment and a 
stirring appeal to the patriotism and prudence of the Repub- 
licans of Massachusetts to defeat the pending proposal. 

The resolutions promulgated by the State Central Com- 
mittee in Iowa were given extensive circulation outside the 
state. They were printed at length on the editorial pages of 
The Press and Tribune of Chicago on April 29th and on the 
same date they appeared on the editorial page of The Tribune 
of New York ; and on ]\Iay 5th they were given similar distinc- 
tion on the first page of The National Bra, at Washington, 
D. C. All of the papers named had an extensive circulation 
in the states of the Northwest, particularly Greeley's Weekly 
Tribune.^ 

° The circulation of the JJ^cekly Tribune in Iowa in the forepart of 
1859 was 7,523, more than double the circulation of The Hawk eye of 
Burlington, the most influential and widely read Republican paper in 
eastern Iowa. 

^ 6 — 



The Germans of Iowa, however, did not seem to be en- 
tirely satisfied. Their confidence in the intei^rity and reliability 
of the Republican party had been so rudely shocked by the 
act of the Legislature of Massachusetts controlled by Repub- 
licans and nominal liberals and "progressives," as philan- 
thropists and reformers, then, as now-a-days, fondly called 
themselves, that they were highly suspicious and insisted that 
all of those charged with the leadership of the party should 
make the most ex|)licit and unequivocal avowals of their atti- 
tude toward the "Two Year" Amendment. 

Sometime in the latter part of March some of the leaders 
among the Germans began to suspect that the Republicans were 
very war}^ of expression anent the act proposed in Massa- 
chusetts. Probably during March Nicholas J. Rusch, a state 
senator from Scott county, addressed a long communication 
to Greeley's Tribune, which appeared April 11th, in which he 
pointed out this fact in language that left no doubt as to the 
alarm and discontent among the Germans in Iowa. Again, al- 
though the resolutions of the Republican state central com- 
mittee and Mr. Kasson's address were very outspoken, many 
of the leading Republican papers gave the resolutions no com- 
mendation in their editorial columns and a number of the in- 
fluential party editors sharply criticized Mr. Kasson and his 
colleagues of the committee for their action, declaring it ultra 
vires and without justification ; among others condemning the 
Committee were, The Dubuque Daily Times, The Oskaloosa 
Herald, The Montezuma Republican, The Spirit. of the West 
of Sigourney, and TJie Weekly Nonpareil of Council BluflFs. 
It was not strange that the suspicious Germans concluded that 
the Republicans were not overzealous in their opposition to 
the proposed act of the Republicans of Massachusetts. 

Another fact loomed large in the minds of Germans and 
enhanced their suspicion and cynical contempt for formal 
declarations. The first National Republican convention at 
Philadelphia had concluded their platform with an appeal to 
"men of all parties," the final \vords of which were an explicit 
declaration and pledge of opposition to all legislation or public 

— 7 — 



policy adversely affecting the naturalized citizens. The plank 
reading: — "belie\^ing that the spirit of our institutions as well 
as the Constitution of our country guarantees liberty of con- 
science and equality of rights among citizens, we oppose all 
legislation impairing their security." As the Republicans of 
Massachusetts had proposed and submitted to their consti- 
tuents the "Two Year" Amendment with that unqualified 
pledge staring them full in the face, and with indignant Ger- 
mans pressing its obligation upon their consideration, the dis- 
turbance and doubts among Germans v/ere normal resultants. 
Hence the decision to resort to decisive and conclusive meas- 
ures to discover the position of the Republican leaders, to force 
them to come out into the open and to stand by their guns. 
Both in method and in results their maneuvre was in truth, 
what our military experts would call a reconnoissance in force. 

Sometime in April the leaders among the German Repub- 
licans of Dubuque, Davenport, Muscatine, Burlington and Keo- 
kuk began to correspond and to confer concerning the situa- 
tion and to concert plans for discovering the true feelings of 
the standard bearers of the Republican party severally and in 
such a way as would give no opportunity to fearful or shifty 
politicians for hedging or dodging or denial. 

Whether the manoeuvre agreed upon was first urged at 
Dubuque, or at Davenport, or at Burlington, or elsewhere; 
who first suggested or urged concert of action ; who took the 
lead in promoting it; what the various plans suggested were 
and what the precise plan ultimately agreed upon — all these 
important items probably are now matters for conjecture. The 
files of the Staats Zeitnng, and of the Volkstribun, both of 
Dubuque, of the Zeitnng of Muscatine and the Frcie Prcsse 
of Burlington have been lost; the columns of Dcr Demokrat of 
Davenport give us no clue ; and the American papers disclose 
nothing of the prior developments. In view of the intense feel- 
ing among the Germans and the noteworthy results of their 
concert of action it is passing strange that the editors of some 
of the German papers did not let the public know something 
of the preliminaries and the persons foremost in the prosecu- 
tion of the manoeuvre. Sundry facts indicated in the initial 



responses obtained by the Germans, however, enable us to learn 
the names of some of the leaders in the movement and some- 
what of their plan of operations. 

Consultations and correspondence among the German lead- 
ers concluded in a decision to formulate a letter containing a 
series of specific questions to be presented personally to each 
of the members of the Congressional Delegation of Iowa, 
namely to Senator James Harlan and Senator James W. 
Grimes, and to Colonel Samuel R. Curtis of the First or South- 
ern District, and to Mr. William Vandever of the Second or 
Northern District. The interrogatories numbered three and 
were as follows : 

1. Are you in favor of the Naturalization laws as 
they now stand, and particularly against all and every 
extension of the probation tinie? 

2. Do you regard it a duty of the Republican party 
as the party of equal rights, to oppose and war upon each 
and every discrimination that may be attempted to be 
made between the native born and adopted citizens, as 
to the right of suffrage? 

3. Do you condemn the late action of the Repub- 
licans in the Massachusetts legislature, attempting to ex- 
clude the adopted citizens for two years from the ballot 
box, as unwise, unjust, and uncalled for? 

It is not quite clear whether the letter containing the fore- 
going interrogatories was a circular letter with the same sub- 
scribers to each and all presented to the Congressional Dele- 
gation or not. From some of the responses it would appear 
that it was substantially a circular letter; but the names of 
the initial subscribers seem to have varied more or less with 
the locality of the Congressman addressed. The number who 
joined in presenting the questions seem to have been a con- 
siderable group — in one instance, at least, exceeding fifty. ^ 

° Senator Grimes addressed his reply to Messrs. Hillgaertner, Bitt- 
mann, Freund, Olshansen, Guelich and others. See Der Demokrat, 
5 Mai. Senator Harlan addressed his reply to Mr. J. B. Webber and 
others. The Hazvkeye^ May 11. Col. Curtis' letter of May 13 was 
directed to Messrs. Kuestenmacher, Henry Richter, Silas Schmidt and 
"49 others," The Gate City, May 19; and Mr. Vandever's response 
was addressed to Messrs. Richter, Olshansen, Kuestenmacher "and 
others." The Buchanan County Guardian, June 2. 

— 9 — 



Among the signers were several prominent German lead- 
ers ; men with reputations exceeding the bounds of their city 
or state : — Messrs. Theodore Guelich and Theodore Olshausen 
of Davenport, the first named being the original editor, and 
the second the then managing editor of Dcr Tdgliche Demo- 
krat; and Messrs. Henry Richter, John Bittmann and George 
Hillgaertner of Dubuque. Mr. Richter was the editor of the 
Iowa Staats-Zeitung and Dr. Hillgaertner was an associate 
editor with him. 

Their circular letter, at least those addressed to Senators 
Grimes and Harlan appear to have been dated April 30. 
There is color for the notion that a committee of Germans at 
Burlington presented the letter addressed to Senator Grimes in 
person. He either had been forewarned, or he responded with 
remarkable haste, or assurance; for he replied instantly, on the 
same day. His reply was printed in TJie Hawkeye on May 3 
and appeared at length in Der Demokrat at Davenport on May 
5. Senator Harlan's response, an extended document of ap- 
proximately 3500 v/ords, was dated at Mt. Pleasant May 2. 
It did not appear in The Hawkey c until May 11 and in Der 
Demokrat at Davenport until May 13. These dates we shall 
have occasion later to note are significant. 

11. 

In the light of the immediate and widespread consequences 
of the Circular letter addressed to the Congressional Delega- 
tion of Iowa by the Germans of eastern Iowa, the authorship 
of the letter becomes a matter of more than vagrant curiosity. 
The loss, or disappearance of most of the papers whence au- 
thentic information might be obtained; and the utter silence 
of those editors whose papers are preserved make conclusions 
wholly a matter of generous inference and surmise. 

Four names that appear among those to whom the Repub- 
lican Congressmen of Iowa sent their replies, and one not 
named, may not unreasonably be accredited with conceiving 
and executing the plan composing the letter containing the 
categorical inquiries — Messrs. Bittmann, Hillgaertner, Guelich 

— 10 — 



and Olshausen, already mentioned and Air. Hans Reimer 
Clausen of Davenport. All, save Mr. Bittmann, were refugees 
from the arbitrary and oppressive government of their Father- 
land; all were liberals of the advanced or radical sort; all were 
pronounced opponents of Slavery and outspoken in their op- 
position to its extension and continuance ; and all had stood 
forth in the forefront of many a fight for the furtherance of 
their ideas. 

Mr. Clausen was not specifically named in any of the letters 
as one of those addressed ; but it is inconceivable that a man 
as active and aggressive as he was in promoting the interests 
of liberal German-Americans w^as not active in the conferences 
that concluded in the German Circular letter. He was among 
the leaders of the bar of Davenport and was an aggressive 
and dominant type of leader in practical politics. The letter 
of April 30, 1859, was in no small measure a repetition and 
enlargement of a letter addressed by him publicly to Mr. 
Vandever on September 8, 1858, as a candidate for Congress.* 
His questions were the same, and the method of his maneuvre 
to elicit an unequivocal expression from Mr. Vandever was 
precisely followed in 1859; and Mr. Vandever was again one 
of those addressed in April, 1859. If he did not first suggest 
or initiate the plan thus to concert action, his letter of 1858 
m^ay have served as the prompting suggestion. 

Mr. John Bittmann, founder and editor of the Staats- 
Zeitung of Dubuque, and Mr. Theodore Guelich, the founder 
of Dcr Demokrat of Davenport, were each capable of conceiv- 
ing the plan of the circular letter and of vigorously pressing 
matters to an issue, for both were liberals of the irreducible, 
not to say, irrepressible sort, able, ardent in temperament, and 

* Mr. Clausen's questions presented to Mr. Vandever, September 8, 
1858, as stated above, were the following: 

1. Are you willing, when a member of Congress, vigorously and 
with all your power to oppose any attempt to change the laws of 
naturalization so as to extend the time of probation? 

2. As any legislative measure which prevent a naturalized citi?:en, 
after his naturalization for a certain length of time from voting, are 
equivalent to the extension of the time of probation, are you willing to 
act for or against such measures? 

— 11 — 



energetic and courageous in all affairs arousing them to action. 
In the organization of the RepubHcan party in Iowa in 1856 
Mr. Bittmann and Mr. Guehch were two of three German edi- 
tors who balked because the state convention at Iowa City re- 
fused to declare itself plmnply against all men and meas- 
ures affected with Know-Nothingism,^ and they were not a 
whit less energetic and outspoken in 1859. 

In respect of ability and character, discernment and cour- 
age, the same observations are to be made of Mr. Theodore 
Olshausen, then editor of Dcr Dcmohrat. He had been a 
man of distinction in Schleswig-Holstein as a lawyer and 
statesman. From 1851 to 1856 he had been a resident of St. 
Louis where he engaged in literary' work. In 1856 he took 
charge of Der Dcmokrat and his distinction added greatly to 
the influence of that journal in the Mississippi valley. Mr. 
Olshausen's career later at St. Louis, as the editor of the 
Anzeiger des Westens during the critical days of 1861 when 
the hearts of the burghers of that fair city were torn with 
Disunion disclosed that he had the discerning eye, the steady 
courage and persistent purpose, that would have compassed 
the manoeuvre in Iowa in 1859, had he discerned the urgency 
for so doing. 

The name of Dr. George Hillgaertner of Dubuque pro- 
duces strong presumptions in favor of the conclusion that he 
took the lead in formulating the circular letter of April 30. 
He fled from Eavaria under sentence of death for his part in 
the Revolution. He came to the United States about 1852. He 
accompanied Professor Gottfried Kinkel, as his Private Secre- 
tary, in his celebrated tour of our eastern and southern states 
in his attempt to raise a loan of a million dollars to promote 
a liberal government in Germany. In the forepart of 1854 
he settled in Chicago and immediately became one of the edi- 
tors of Der Illinois Stoats Zcitnng and one of the influential 
leaders of the Germans in that city. He was an out-and-out 

° See Dubuque Daily Republican, IVIarch 3, 1856, in which the state- 
ment signed by Messrs. Bittmann and Guelich and L. Mader of the 
Preie Presse of Burlington, declaring that they will hold aloof from 
the new party until it is purged of the "impure elements" by which it 
was then "infested." 

— 12 — 



opponent of Slavery, of Know-Nothingisni and of "Maine-Law- 
ism" as the drastic "temperance"' legislation of those days was 
designated. In the notable Alass-meeting of the Germans in 
South jMarket Hall on the night of March 16, Dr. Hillgaert- 
ner was made chairman of the committee on reso'utions and 
brought in and presented the ringing resolutions denouncing 
vSenator Douglas for his course in respect of the part he had 
taken in the repeal of th.e Missouri Compromise. Later in that 
year he spoke out so vigorously against the prevalent prop- 
agandism against the foreign-born then raging and against 
pending proposals or proceedings to restrict or prohibit the 
manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors as beverages that a 
storm broke about his head and mob-violence and judicial pro- 
ceedings seemed to threaten his liberty, if not his life. His 
was a character that l^ad no patience for arbitrary government 
in any form or place and he had an ardent temperament which 
made him reckless of policy or prudence. It v;as probably the 
reaction of his com-se that caused him in 1855 to sever his con- 
nection with the Staats Zcitung of Chicago and remove to 
Dubuque where he became associated with Mr. John Bittmann, 
as an associate editor in the conduct of the Staats Zcitung of 
that city. In his new home city proslavery sentiment was so 
preponderant that Democrats fondly called Dubuque "The 
Gibraltar of the Democracy of Iowa." In Iowa, as in Illinois, 
Dr. Hillgaertner immediately stepped to the fore in the stormy 
discussions of that day. When the opponents of Slavery first 
assembled in a mass-meeting in Dubuque to effect the first 
local oiganization of the Republican party in that county. Dr. 
Hillgaertner was made one of the two secretaries and was one 
of the two asked to address the meeting. He was sent as a 
delegate to the first Republican state convention at Iowa City 
on February 22. Dr. Hillgaertner was a licentiate in law of 
the University of Munich. His abihty as a forceful writer was 
signified in October, 1859, by a call to join the editorial staff 
of Dcr Wcstliche Post of St. Louis and that of Der Ancciger 
des IVcstcns on which he remained until his death in October, 
1865, aged 41. 

A conclusion as to the first proposer of the Circular letter 
— 13 — 



of April 30 and as to its author must be clouded by uncer- 
tainty. The similarity of the questions presented to the Con- 
gressional Delegation of Iowa in 1859 to those submitted to 
]\Ir. Vandever in 1858 by Hans Reimer Clausen strongly sug- 
gests him as the man foremost in the matter. 

Senator Grimes' reply gives us a definite clue. It was ap- 
parently delivered to him at Burlington in person. But the 
first person named among the addressees is Dr. Hillgaertner. 
This suggests that Senator Grimes formally responded to the 
committee of Germans who signed the letter and Dr. Hill- 
gaertner's name, it would seem, headed the array of signatures. 
As Dr. Hillgaertner was a resident of Dubuque, and probably 
was not a familiar acquaintance of Senator Grimes, the con- 
clusion would seem fairly to be that Senator Grimes first 
named the chairman or prime mover in the project. It is cus- 
tomary — although not invariable — for the chairman of a com- 
mittee to formulate the sentiments of the body or persons in- 
terested. There is thus a strong presumption in favor of such 
a conclusion. The character and career of Dr. Hillgaertner 
confirms and strengthens this conclusion.*' 

" Por additional information as to Hans Reimer Clausen see the 
writer's "Iowa and the First Nomination of Abraham Lincohi," in 
The Annals of lozva, vol. viii, pp. 205-206; and also his "The Germans 
of Davenport and the Chicago Convention of 1860," in Dcutsch- 
Amerikanische Geschichtshlattcr, vol. x, pp. 156-163. 

See Cue's "Life and Death of Theodore Guelich," Annals of lozva, 
vol. i, pp. 46-52. 

The writer is indehted to Dr. August P. Richter, formerly editor 
of Der Demokrat of Davenport for data as to the careers of John 
Bittmann and Theodor Olshausen. 

For the career of Dr. George Hillgaertner see Illinois Staats- 
Zeitung, Jubilee edition, July 4, 1898 : Georg Hillgaertner — Eine bio- 
graphischc Skizze. [By Dr. Emil Pretorius?] St. Louis, 1866: 
Deutsche Geschichtsforschung fur Missouri, No. 5, April 1914, "Georg 
Hillgaertner, ein Held der Feder und der That in Deutschland und 
Amerika," pp. 138-144; and the writer's "The Germans of Chicago and 
Stephen A. Douglas in 1854," in Deutsch-Amerikanische Geschichts- 
bldttcr, vol. xii, pp. 156-163. 

The v.-riter is indebted to Dr. George Minges of Dubuque, Iowa, 
and to Mr. Wm. A. Kelso of The Daily Fost-Dispatch of St. Louis for 
most of the data and references to sources of information as to the 
career of Dr. Hillgaertner. 

— 14 — 



Let us now follow developments across the river and dis- 
cover if there are any causal relations between events in Iowa 
and those preceding Mr. Lincoln's reply to Dr. Canisius. 

IlL 

The American press of Illinois became aroused to the 
serious political significance of the j^roposed "Two Year" 
Amendment to the constitution of Massachusetts as soon as 
the press of Iowa. The first noteworthy expression was a 
striking editorial in Tlic Press and Tribune of Chicago, March 
21. Its length, its earnestness and vigor demonstrate that the 
editor saw in the growing agitation of the Germans conse- 
quent upon the proposal in Massachusetts, serious and im- 
minent danger threatening the success of tlie Republican party 
in both state and nation. In these distant days it is not easy 
to realize the nature, sweep and significance of the alarm that 
suddenly took possession of the foremost Republican editors 
and party leaders of the anti-slavery and Opposition forces 
in the forepart of 1859 anent the act submitted to the electors 
of Massachusetts ; and in order that this fact may in some part 
be realized the entire editorial is here reproduced : 

VOTE IT DOWN. 

The Legislature of Massachusetts has lately proposed 
an amendment to the constitution of that state restrict- 
ing the right of voting, among adopted citizens, to such 
as have been two years naturalized. The amendment is 
to be submitted to the people at the next general election. 
We hope that it may be voted down ; and that the Repub- 
lican party of the Commonwealth will be preeminent in 
its opposition to the proposed change. It is due to 
the integrity of our organization, composed as it is of 
the masses of the educated foreigners of all nationalities 
that a measure in itself so unjust and unexpected — one 
against which they supposed that the Republican National 
Convention at Philadelphia in 1856 had given them a suffi- 
cient guaranty — should meet with its quietus by Repub- 
lican hands. Good faith and fair dealing with those who 
separated themselves from the bogus Democracy to as- 
sist the party of Freedom in the accomplishment of tl' : 

— 15 — 



results which it proposes — who have for the sake of prin- 
ciple been willing to fraternize with Know Nothings, 
their most deadly enemies — and who have, in their action 
on national questions at issue between parties, displayed 
a degree of patriotism and fidelity which many an Amer- 
ican might imitate with advantage, — good faith to these 
demands that there should be no hesitation, no dodging, 
no compromises in this thing. It must be killed, or Re- 
publicanism in all the Northwestern vStates and not a 
few of the eastern States is needlessly and imminently 
imperilled ! 

While we speak thus decidedly, let not our Massa- 
chusetts friends understand that the Republicans of Illi- 
nois and the adjoining states, where the value of the 
aid of the adopted citizens in the progress of the Repub- 
lican principles is recognized and appreciated, ask for a 
continuance of the naturalization laws as they are. Our 
Germans, Scandinavians, English, Protestant Irish and 
French, to a man, will not only assent to, but gladly de- 
clare themselves in favor of an important change. They 
see as clearly as Americans can the frauds which, under 
the existing law, may be and are perpetrated, and they 
will, we are assured, co-operate with whomsoever will take 
the lead in the legislation that may be necessary for great- 
er security of their inestimable rights. They will cor- 
dially agree that no man shall vote within two years of 
the date of his past papers, if those papers can be ob- 
tained by a three years residence; or, what is better still, 
they will consent that five years may intervene between 
the date of the naturalization papers, and the first exer- 
cise of the elective franchise, provided that naturaliza- 
tion may take place within the first year's residence in 
the country. But they demand, and justly enough, that 
the law shall be a law of Congress uniform in action and 
universal in its application ; and it is a wonder that the 
members of the Massachusetts Legislature could not so 
far respect their principles as to memorialize Congress 
for an enactment which all Republicans, native and 
adopted, might support, rather than throw the element 
of discord into our political discussions which should 
be directed towards the best methods of releasing the 
country from the wicked rule of the Slave Democracy. 

It is time, however, that this question misnamed 
Americanism should be met, and that the abuses of the 
elective franchise, by which the Democracy of the North 

— 16 — 



usually secure their triumphs, should be prevented. We 
are not afraid of the agitation which will follow a re- 
opening of the whole matter. We know that the adopted 
citizens working with the Republican party for the prin- 
ciples of freedom are sincerely desirous of adopting any 
just measures for securing purity in our elections, pre- 
venting the illegal naturalizations of aliens, and guard- 
ing the perfect expression of the popular will as Amer- 
icans themselves. The experience of the past six years 
has laught them that they have nothing in the way of in- 
tolerance and proscription to fear from the American 
people. The bugbear of Know-Nothingism has lost its 
terror, and as might be expected of a body of men who 
enjoy here the rational liberty they have been denied else- 
where, they grow more and more solicitous to preserve 
that liberty to themselves, and to hand it down to their 
children unimpaired. Massachusetts owes it to these men 
to put under foot the injustice which her legislators have 
proposed. 
The editorial was widely quoted^ and it was unquestionably 
one of the decisive expressions that operated powerfully in 
the furious discussion tliat immediately swept over the coun- 
try. On March 25 the Daily Illinois State Journal at Spring- 
field published a half column editorial denouncing the meas- 
ure pending in the Old Bay State. Its drift and energy may 
be inferred from its title: "Massachusetts' Constitution — 
Shameful Attempt at Proscription." 

On March 24 the Republican State Central Committee of 
Wisconsin agreed upon and published an Address "To the Peo- 
ple of Wisconsin." Its occasion was the act submitted to the 
voters of Massachusetts. After citing a series of resolutions 
adopted by the state convention of their party in 1857 the Com- 
mittee condemn in no uncertain terms the proposed Amend- 
ment in the Old Bay State and they appeal to their Republi- 
can confreres in ]\Jassachusetts to "efface the single stain upon 
that escutcheon which the Republicans of Massachusetts have 
so nobly borne." This pronouncement was published in TJw 
Mikvaukce Daily Sentinel in its issue of Alarch 28. 

^Thus The Davenport Daily Gazette on March 31 cited from it at 
length in an editorial ; and Garrison's Liberator in Boston reprinted it 
entire in the issue of April 8. 

— 17 — 



The next day The Press and Tribune of Chicago again 
dealt with "Massachusetts and the Naturalization Laws," and 
observed: "Everywhere the Republicans are speaking out man- 
fully and independer.tly against the recent action of the Massa- 
chusetts Legislature. . . . There is no divided opinion upon 
the subject in any of the free states of the Union, and it is 
our deliberate conviction that even in Massachusetts the Re- 
publicans will vote in solid phalanx against it." The editorial 
quotes at length from the statement of the Republican state 
Central Committee of Wisconsin and concludes with the senti- 
ment and hope: "This is Avell done, and we hope to see the 
Republicans of every State in the Union uniting in solemn 
and emphatic protest a.<:r?'inst the Massachusetts proposition." 

Tiie pressure of public interest was constant for the next 
day, March 30, The Press and Tribune took notice of some 
"spirited resolutions" adopted by The Young Men's National 
Republican Association of Cincinnati, Ohio, "condemnatory of 
the attempt now being made in Massachusetts" and again ob- 
serves : "The Republicans of Massachusetts owe it to them- 
selves and to their brethren of other states to put an emphatic 
negative upon the proposed amendment at the polls — a duty 
we doubt not they will most gladly perform." 

Precisely similar sentiments were expressed at Springfield 
on April 2, in an editorial of the State Journal in citing and 
commenting upon some resolutions adopted at a meeting of 
Germans of Toledo, Ohio, condemning the act of Massachu- 
setts and appealing to the voters, and particularly to the Repub- 
licans of tliat state to defeat the Amendment. The Journal 
hopes that the Republicans of every state will unite in a 
"solemn and emphatic protest" against the proscriptive meas- 
ure submitted in Massachusetts. On April 5 the Journal tells 
its readers that "The -\Iassachusetts Constitution" receives an 
"emphatic rebuke from Wisconsin"; and on April 8 it again 
enlarges upon the pending proposal in Massachusetts dealing 
with sentiments expressed by the Boston Traveler. 

The notable speech of Air. Carl Schurz in Faneuil Hall, 
Boston, on the evening of April 18 on "True Americanism" 
which was a protest against the principle and policy of the 

— 18 — 



"Two Year" discrimination and a plea for its defeat, and the 
remarkable reception accorded the brilliant young German ad- 
vocate of Milwaukee by the elite of Boston elicited some addi- 
tional comments from Tlic Press and Tribune, April 22, that 
enhanced the antagonism to such proscriptive legislation. 

The same journal on April 29 printed as an editorial article 
the resolutions of the Republican State Central Committee of 
lov/a adopted April IS, already referred to. A week later, 
May 5, under the caption "Massachusetts," the following edi- 
torial expression was given in respect of a recently published 
letter of Senator Henry Wilson to Congressman Gillette of 
Connecticut :^ 

With rare courage, but with a degree of devotion to 
the principles that underlie the Republican movement 
that might have been expected, Hon. Henry Wilson, 
Senator from Massachusetts, takes open and decided ob- 
jections to the two year amendment of the Massachusetts 
State constitution. His letter on the subject, printed at 
length in all the Boston newspapers, is an able and ex- 
haustive discussion of the whole subject, so able that 
we of the West where the foreign element is most power- 
ful, and where its dangers and advantages are properly 
estimated, cannot see how a Republican can fail to be 
quieted by its facts and reasonings. ]\Ir. Wilson seems 
to know, as we do, that that portion of the foreign vote 
which is not vv^edded by the Catholic Church to Pro- 
Slavery Democracy in indissoluble bonds, will gladly join 
in any just and proper movement by which the abuse of 
the elective franchise may be prevented. Republican for- 
eigners desire nothing more than the purity of the ballot 
box, and dread nothing more than the frauds by which 
its value has been measurably destroyed. They want 
just and salutary reform ; not proscription. * * * 

"We thank the Senator in the name of the Republi- 
cans of the West, for his timely defense of the principles 
of the party and the integrity of the organization ; and 
we trust that the appeal which he has made to the good 
sense and honesty of his state will prove not to have been 
made in vain." 

' The initial paragraph of Senator Wilson's letter is reprinted in 
the writer's article in Dentsch-Amerikanische Geschichtsbldtter, vol. 
xiii, p. 212-213. 

— 19 — 



The determination of the "Two Year" Amendment was to 
be made on May 9 and it is clear that ]\Iessrs. Ray and Medill 
had begun to suspect from sundry signs which they observed in 
the reports from ]\Iassachuselts that the defeat of the proposi- 
tion was uncertain. For the next day there was published a 
long leader in which the major purpose was to show that the 
proposed Amendment and the perplexity of the Republicans 
were really due to the machinations and plots of the Pro- 
Slavery Democrats of the Puritan Commonwealth. There were 
three political parties in Massachusetts — the Republicans, the 
Americans and the Democrats, and of these the Democrats 
easily and obviously held "the balance of power." The Ameri- 
can party for years had been striving to secure drastic meas- 
ures restricting the electoral privilege and rights as tO' public 
office for naturalized citizens. The Republicans, it was con- 
tended, had steadily resisted their adoption. Finally the Demo- 
crats perceiving their opportunity had joined with the anti- 
foreign propagandists and pushed the "Two Year" Amendment 
through the General Court. The situation in the state at large 
was more or less the same. The Republicans were working 
against it: "But the Republicans alone cannot defeat it. Their 
vote is nearly equal to that of the 'Americans' proper. The 
Democrats hold the balance of power upon the question ; and 
our advices from Massachusetts lead us to believe that a secret 
purpose exists on their part to vote for the amendment, partly 
with the hope of placing the odium of its adoption on the Re- 
publicans, and partly because they would really prefer to have 
the large masses of the anti-slavery foreign population dis- 
franchised. We warn our fellow citizens of foreign birth in 
advance, of the trick of the slavery propagandists. They may 
rest assured that the Republicans not only of Massachusetts but 
everywhere are imanimous in their opposition to the proposed 
amendment, and that it can only gain a footing through the 
secret aid and votes of the Democrats. If the results on the 
9th should be adverse to what Republicans of every state and 
of every nationality ardently desire, the Pro-Slavery Democ- 
racy of Massachusetts will be responsible for it. The balance 
of power is in their hands. Watch and see how they use it." 

— 20 — 



It needs hardly lo be observed that TJ'^e Press and Tribune 
was manifestly hedging against the storm of criticism that 
would break upon the Republican party in the event the 
Amendment should carry at the polls. The argument put forth 
is somewhat fanciful, not to say fallacious. Furthermore it 
was not correct to say that all the leading Republican papers 
and party leaders were actively opposed to the Amendment. 
Even such a stout anti-slavery champion as Gen. Wm. Schou- 
ler, then editor of th.e Pioston Traveler, supported the Amend- 
ment. While Senator Wilson openly opposed its adoption, the 
majority of the party leaders either openly endorsed it or gave 
it tacit support. Governor Banks had commended the principle 
to the legislature and had signed it. Eight of the eleven Con- 
gressmen were listed as supporting it. among the number being 
Charles Francis Adams^ and Anson Burlingame. As to the 
iniquity of the Democrats in conspiring to secure the adoption 
of the measure for petty partisan advantage, Gen. Schouler 
wrote Salmon P. Chase that the whole project was a scheme 
of the friends of Senator Seward to undermine Governor 
Banks among the Germans of the West and thus weaken his 
strength before the national convention.^" 

IV. 

The advices of The Press and Tribune as to the prospects 
of the passage of the "Two Year" Amendment were well 
founded. The proposal carried at the election May 9. The 
vote, as is usual with such a popular referendum, was light — 
21,119 for, and 15,398 against the Amendment. The total 
vote cast was about one fourth that cast for Fremont and 
Buchanan in 1856. The measure was rejected in seven of the 
fourteen comities of the Commonwealth and was given a 
majority in the other seven. The seven counties wherein the 
Amendment carried were the most populous counties : namely, 
Bristol, Essex, Middleessex, Norfolk, Plymouth, Suffolk, and 

"Nezv York Tribune, May 17, 1859. 

'"Wm. Schouler to S. P. Chase (Mss.), Boston. May 3, 1859, in 
Chase Correspondence in Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 

— 21 — 



Worcester. With the exception of Northh.ampton, Springfield 
and Worcester, the Amendment carried in all of the leading 
cities and towns: e. g., in Boston, Charleston and Cambridge; 
in Fall River and Gloucester; in Lawrence and Lowell; in 
Medford, Milford and Newburyport; in Roxbury, Salem and 
Waltham. Even in Senator Wilson's hometown of Natick the 
Amendment was carried by a vote of 92 to 86.^^ 

• Instantly the Democrats realized that they had a new war 
club with which they could belabor the Republicans and play 
vigorously upon the sensibilities of the Germans and the for- 
eign born, to the detriment and embarrassment of "the party 
of liberty and high ideals" that prided itself upon its opposition 
to slavery and all forms of race discrimination. Under the 
new Amendment of Massachusetts a Southern Slaveholder, 
or a runaway slave from the rice swamps of South Carolina or 
the cotton fields of Mississippi could acquire the complete fran- 
chise in respect of the ballot and office-holding by a single 
year's residence and such types of University bred men as — ■ 
Charles Bernays, A. Douai, Julius Froebel, Fred. Hassaurek, 
Fred. Hecker, Carl Heinzen, George Hillgaertner, Francis A. 
Hoffman, Francis Lieber, Fred. Kapp, Gustav Koerner, Ar- 
nold Krekel, Fred Munsch, Theo. Olshausen, E. Pretorious, 
C. G. Ruemelin, Geo. Schneider, Franz Sigel, Rheinard Sol- 
ger, G. Struve, J. B. Stallo, Henry Villard and August Wil- 
lich — these, and scores of like cultured men, would have to 
live in that Commonwealth seven years before they could ex- 
ercise the highest privilege of an American citizen. The con- 
trast between the rights of an ignorant, stupid, and mayhap, 
vicious negro and those of the literati of Europe's most re- 
nowned seats of learning presented a spectacle in contrasts 
that would arouse sensitive Germans to the highest pitch of 
wrath. Such alert, far-seeing editors, as ^Messrs. Ray and 
Medill of The Press and Tribune early anticipated with what 
delight the Democrats would descant upon such an odious dis- 
crimination. 

''^ , Id dress of His Excellency, Nathaniel P. Banks, to the Two 
Branches of the L.e^islalure of Massachusetts. Appendix, pp. ii-xv. 

- 22 — 



Prior to the first of May the Democratic papers had not 
given much attention to the proposed Amendment. It was not 
until they began to perceive how great was the indignation and 
so manifest the belHgerent activities of the German editors 
and party leaders against the measure that tliey awakened to 
its serious strategic importance as a poHtical fact. The first 
noteworthy expression in Th^e Chicago Times, the chief organ 
of Senator Douglas, was on J\Iay 5 in an editorial upon "The 
Proscrii:)tion of Foreigners." On May 7 its batteries were 
again turned upon the Republicans in an editorial with the cap- 
tion, "A Silly Efi'ort to Shirk Responsibility" ; such attempts 
as that of the Press and Tribune to get from under the load of 
obliquy for the part taken by Republicans in the passage of the 
act and its submission to the voters eliciting its finest scorn. 
When the result of the election on May 9 became known The 
Times again laid about with great gusto, saddling upon the Re- 
publicans the sole responsibility for the Amendment, precisely 
as the Press and Tribune had prudently forewarned the pubHc 
would be done by the ungenerous and iniscrupulous Demo- 
crats. 

The Times contemptuously asked the Press and Tribune to 
explain and make some sort of a defence for the iniquity 
wrought. The Republican organ while manifesting the usual 
contempt and hauteur that editors are wont to exhibit anent 
the pin-pricks and thrusts of contemporaries did not deem 
it prudent to ignore the challenge, although it felt constrained 
to characterize the article of the Times as "a column of 
twaddle;" and on ]May 14 it presented a half dozen reasons why 
the Democrats should be directly charged with the ofifense of 
conceiving, promoting and producing the odious measure. The 
reasons given are both interesting and instructive and are 
briefly summarized : 

First, the whole number of votes in Massachusetts is about 
150,000. Second, The Democrats in that state number about 
50,000 all-told. Third, The total number of votes cast at the 
election on Alay 9 was about 40.000. or about one fourth the 
normal vote of the State. The number who voted against the 
Amendment was only about 17,000 (the official count reduced 

— 23 — 



the number to 15,398). Fourth, Had the Democrats turned 
out and cast their ballots against the amendment it would have 
been defeated by more than 25,000 votes. Fifth, The truth 
is that three-fourths of the Democrats stayed at home for the 
express purpose of letting it pass; and a large majority of 
those who did go to the polls voted for it in order to throw the 
odium of the measure upon the Republicans. Sixth, Fully 
three-fourths of all the votes throv\'n against it were cast by 
Republicans. No party in JMassachusetts was anxious to have 
the amendment adopted, save the Democratic party which 
hoped to make a little party capital out of it. The indigna- 
tion vented by the Times was the merest sham. Its editors, 
in common with all the Democratic politicians in Chicago, were 
glad that the amendment had been adopted, and if they had 
lived in Alassachusetts would have voted for it just as did 
the editors of the Boston Post. 

As Jove himself, as well as the lesser Gods, is wont now and 
then to nod, and on occasion slump, and anon run amuck, it is 
not strange that hard pressed editors, especially those who 
serve as high priests at the oracles, suffer likewise and plunged 
head formost into the pit of puerilities. The contention of 
the Press and Tribune was compounded of crass assumption 
and bland assertion, heedless of the prosaic probabilities that 
usually control common sense and interpretation. If there was 
a Republican state in the Union it was Massachusetts. The 
anti-slavery forces, or the Republicans, had general charge of 
the ship of state ; and all the honors and all the pains and 
penalties of place and power attached to the party in office, re- 
sponsible for the general administration of affairs. The plea 
of the Press and Tribune in mitigation, or rather in denial of 
the charge lodged against the Republicans was so obviously 
futile as to make one conclude that it w^as a reckless pretense 
which the editors themselves were aware of and which they 
would have given short shrift and repudiated with utter con- 
tempt had the shoe pinched the foot of the Democratic party. 
The editorial demonstrates how hard put the Republicans 
were to "save their face" as the parlance of the street would 
phrase it. The inanities of the editorial may suggest some- 

— 24 — 



what of their sense of tlie desperate straits of the party, should 
the alarm and belligerent rxtivity of the Germans, then ap- 
parent in all of the northern free states west of New England, 
not be circnmvented and confuted. From all points of the 
horizon tliey could observe sheet lightning- and flashes of fire 
that meant a gathering storm and the wreckage of party crafts 
if the indignation and suspiciousness of the Germans could not 
be allayed and their confidence in the character and good faith 
of the Republican party rencAved. 

In full view of the facts just set forth we may now appre- 
ciate the remarkable demonstration among the Republican 
leaders of Illinois during the two weeks between May 6 and 
May 20. 

V. 

On Tuesday morning, May 6, The Press and Tribune of 
Chicago contained the following editorial : 

LETTER FROM EX-GOV. GRIMES OF IOWA. 

We publish in another column a letter from Gov. Grimes of 
Iowa on the proposed two year Amendment in Massachusetts 
called out by a note addressed to the Congressional Delegation 
from that state by a number of leading German citizens. It is 
an open, frank declaration of sentiment upon the subject in- 
volved, and corresponds fully with that entertained by the 
Republicans, not of Iowa alone but of every State in the Union. 

This editorial note calling attention to Senator Grimes' ^^ 
answer to the interrogatories of the Germans of eastern Iowa 
was given a conspicuous place on the first page in the first 
column near the top, so that all readers, casual and regular, 
would be sure to observe and make note of it. The letter wdiich 
it commends to its readers and to the public is reproduced with- 
out abbreviation because of its important bearing upon subse- 
quent developments in Illinois. 

To Messrs. Hillgaertner, Bittmann, Freund, Olshausen, Guelich 

and others : 
Gentlemen : 

I have just had placed in my hands a copy of your letter 
to the Congressional Delegation from Iowa, in which you pro- 
pound to them the following inquiries, viz. : 

'"Mr. Grimes was then the junior Senator of Iowa at Washington, 
D. C. 

— 25 — 



"1. Are you in favor of the naturalization laws as they now 
stand, and particularly against all and every extension of the 
probation time? 

"2. Do you regard it a duty of the Republican party, as the 
party of equal rights, to oppose and war upon each and every 
discrimination that may be attempted to be made between the 
native born and adopted citizens, as to the right of suffrage? 

"3. Do you condemn the late action of the Republicans in 
the Massachusetts Legislature, attempting to exclude the adopted 
citizens for two years from the ballot box, as unwise, unjust, and 
uncalled for?" 

To each of these interrogations, I respond unhesitatingly in 
the affirmative. 

In regard to the recent action of the Massachusetts Legisla- 
ture I have this to say : that while I admit that the regulation 
sought to be adopted is purely of a local character, with which 
we of Iowa have nothing whatever directly to do, and while I 
would be one of the last men in the world to interfere in the 
local affairs of a sovereign state, or with the action of any party 
in that state upon local matters, yet I claim the right to approve 
or condemn as my judgment may dictate. I believe the action 
of the Massachusetts Legislature to be based upon a false and 
dangerous principle, and fraught with evil to the whole country, 
and not to Massachusetts alone. Hence I condemn it and de- 
plore it, without equivocation or reserve. Knowing how much 
the proposed constitutional provision will offend their brethren 
elsewhere, the Republicans of Massachusetts owe it to their 
party that this amendment shall be overwhelmingly voted down. 

Yours truly, 

James W. Grimes." 

Burlington, Iowa, April 30, 1859. 

The response of Senator Grimes to his German constitu- 
ents is characterized by a conciseness, expHcitness and lucidity 
that are delightful. There are no ifs, or ands, or buts that leave 
one in a fog of doubts as to meanings, or fears as to mental res- 
ervations. Again, he couples downright and outright asser- 
tion with caution and clearcut limitation of the sweep of his 
declaration. He completely recognizes what may appropri- 
ately be designated as "northern states' rights" that in the de- 
cade of the Fugitive Slave law and the Dred Scott decision be- 
came a major tenet in the work-a-day creed of northern anti- 
slavery chainpions that energized, directed and controlled much 
of the discussion and practical politics and legal controversy 
carried on in the north by Abolitionists and Republicans, espe- 
cially after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854. At 
the same time he declares in unequivocal language his unqual- 

" Reprinted in Weekly State Journal, May 12. 
— 26 — 



ified opposition to any disturbance of the stains quo as regards 
naturalization and the franchise, and to any sort of discrimina- 
tion between native and naturalized citizens. Finally, he sug- 
gests that wliile each state should be permitted to go her way 
and do more or less as she or her citizens may please to do, we 
have a grand common interest that is nation-wide and manifests 
itself in our common Federal government. The conduct of one 
state may afifect adversely the feelings, if not the immediate 
rights, of citizens in all the states in our great Commonwealth. 
Consequently, if a local law or a policy gives grave offense in 
other sections and works a revulsion of public sentiment dan- 
gerous to the Party preserving or seeking to secure the major 
common interest, then the rule of comity should control, the 
major interest should predominate over the minor or local in- 
terest. Senator Grimes does not specifically name the approach- 
ing presidential contest as the major consideration ; but his 
language and the drift of his thought obviously implies that he 
had it in contemplation. 

The interrogatories quoted in Senator Grimes' letter, the 
character of the sentiments expressed in his response, and the 
method of his exposition should be kept constantly in the fore- 
ground in considering the developments in Illinois that followed 
after May 9 ; for they seem to give us the chief clue to the 
course of events and to have been a guide or suggestion that 
controlled the nature and form of expression. 

Characterizing Senator Grimes' letter The Press and Trib- 
une declared that his sentiments corresponded with those en- 
tertained by Republicans of "every state in the Union." The 
assertion was somewhat stronger than the facts justified; but 
it correctly stated the situation so far as the foremost anti- 
slavery editors and spokesmen represented the Republican 
party. Gideon Baily of The National Era; Samuel Bowles of 
The Spring-Held, (Mass.) Republican; Wm. Cullen Bryant of 
The N. Y. Evening Post; Wm. Lloyd Garrison of The Liber- 
ator, and Horace Greeley of the N. Y. Tribune, all these, the 
cautious and conservative no less than the irrepressible fanatic 
and radical, stood forth in opposition to the principle and pol- 

— 27 — 



icy of the "Two Year" Amendment and added their pleas to 
the indignant protests of the Germans. 

To an anxious inquiry of Mr. Carl Heinzen, editor of Der 
Pionier, Lloyd Garrison at Boston branded the proposed 
Amendment in The Liberator, April 8, 1859 as "an act of po- 
litical injustice * * * and we have scarcely a doubt that the 
proposed amendment * * * will be rejected by a decided ma- 
jority." 

Greeley's Tribune on April 25 addressed an earnest, not to 
say solemn "Word to the Bay State." Therein the people of 
Illinois read : "But we pray the Republicans of Massachusetts 
to vote down the proposed provision. It has been extensively 
paraded as a bugbear before the eyes of Republicans of for- 
eign, especially those of German birth, and its adoption now 
would work enormous mischief, especially throughout the Free 
West. It might defeat the election of a Republican President 
in 1860. Just vote it down, let reason resume her sway among 
our Adopted citizens." 

On April 28, The National Era printed at length an address 
of the German Citizens of Toledo, Ohio, protesting the act of 
Massachusetts and thus commended its sentiments : "We do 
not wonder at the feeling manifested by our German fellow cit- 
izens, but let them remember that the Republican party stands 
committed, not for, but against any such discrimination." 

We have already noted that The Press and Tribune had 
called the attention of its readers to the ofificial pronouncements 
of Republican leaders and bodies in various states protesting 
against the proposed Amendment in jMassachusetts, to the for- 
mal protest of the Republican State Central Committee of Wis- 
consin in March, and to a like action by the same body in Iowa 
in April. The readers of Greeley's Tribune for May 3 read a 
long and earnest Address of the Republican State Central Com- 
mittee of New York : among the signers being Horace Gree- 
ley, R. M. Blatchford, later one of President Lincoln's ap- 
pointees to the Federal Supreme court at Washington, and 
Frederick Kapp. On May 11, The Press and Tribune informed 
its constituents that another prominent Republican leader had 

— 28 — 



spoken out against the act of Massachusetts. As he was a 
conspicuous figure in the national arena and regarded as among 
the few upon whom the Repubhcan nomination for the Presi- 
dency might fall in 1860, his expression was of more than com- 
mon interest. A portion of its editorial is given : 

GOV. CHASE ON NATURALIZATION. 

Governor Chase of Ohio in forwarding to the State Cen- 
tral Committee a communication addressed to him by German 
Republicans of Sandusky and vicinity with reference to the 
proposed naturalization law in Massachusetts, takes occasion to 
express his own views. He feels "very confident that the Com- 
mittee fully concur in the almost, if not entirely, unanimous 
(Republican) opinion in this state, that no discrimination should 
be made by amendment of a state constitution or otherwise 
between citizens of foreign and native birth. 

"Such has always been my opinion. I was therefore op- 
posed, as is well known, to the proposition urged upon the 
consideration of our legislature, some two or three years ago, 
for the incorporation by amendment into our state constitution 
of a provision similar to that proposed in Massachusetts, requir- 
ing one year's residence only after naturalization, instead of 
two." 

Writing apparently before the result of the election in 
Massachusetts was known, Dr. Bailey noting with concern 
"the sharp contest" within the Republican ranks of Massachu- 
setts over the wisdom of submitting and considering the "Two 
Year" Amendment, observed : 

"The Republicans of Iowa and other Western states have 
sent to Massachusetts formal protests, in the name of com- 
mon cause of Republicans, against the ratification (of the 
Amendment). Apart from the local injustice it will inflict upon 
the adopted citizens of Massachusetts its efifect upon the char- 
acter of the party, throughout the Union, as the conservator 
of universal Freedom, will be injurious." 

VI. 

The facts just set out disclose clearly that the leaders of 
the anti-slavery forces in all of the Northern States west of 
New England, save New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and pos- 
sibly Indiana, looked upon the "Two Year" Amendment as a 
serious menace to the Republican cause. They also make man- 

— 29 — 



ifest that the entire conservative element of the party — if Dr. 
Bailey and Horace Greeley are fair samples — as well as the 
radical element earnestly desired the defeat of the measure 
because it was felt that approval of the measure would place 
the party's chances in jeopardy in the approaching national 
election. As most of the influential editors and responsible 
leaders of the Republican party assumed — at least proclaimed 
their assurance and confidence — that the Amendment would 
be decisively defeated by the Republican electors of Massa- 
chusetts, it was decidedly disconcerting, not to say distressing, 
to learn from the returns on May 9 that the "odious Amend- 
ment" had carried by a considerable majority, carrying too in 
the most populous counties and in the chief cities where wealth 
and education may be presumed to be at their maximum. 

The Press and Tribune might charge that the Democrats 
were the real marplots in compassing the adoption of the "Two 
Year" restriction but its editors and all weatherwise political 
leaders knew that the Germans and French and Scandinavians, 
Bohemians, Hungarians and Swiss, adversely affected by such 
legislation would not swallow such an explanation — the Re- 
publican party was in full control in Massachusetts and would 
have to assume and carry all the obloquy and condemnation re- 
sultant from the passage of the act and the favorable action 
thereon at the polls. Sundry ugly facts could not be ignored or 
tossed aside. The Philadelphia platform of 1856 seemed to be 
grossly disregarded. Public confidence among the Germans 
in the reliability of the party as to its pledges was rudely shaken 
by the conduct of the Republicans of Massachusetts. Alarm 
and suspicion, discontent and dissension, revolt and secession 
were not remote possibilities, but were imminent probabilities. 

To dissipate this alarm became a matter of the greatest ur- 
gency. It was necessary immediately to convince the Germans 
that the Republicans in the West were not of the same ilk with 
their brethren of the Old Bay State ; that they did not con- 
template and would not give countenance to, or tolerate any 
like proposal in local legislation. Convincing and conclusive 
proof that the Republican leaders of Illinois were seized with 
anxiety, that suggested panic, was given the public in an aston- 

— 30 — 



ishing demonstration. In the Week and a half following May 9 
every responsible Republican leader in Illinois came out in 
the open and in the most explicit unequivocal fashion declared 
himself. 

The significance of the expressions here referred to are 
so important in determining subsequent developments in the 
career of Abraham Lincoln and played such a serious part in 
controlling the course and drift of things generally and they 
have been so utterly ignored — or rather they have been so ut- 
terly overlooked by all historians, that sundry literary canons 
are violated and all of the communications are given in ex- 
tenso. In this way only can the reader of the present day ap- 
preciate the contemporary importance of the matter in issue 
and the enormous strategic significance attached to formal dec- 
larations by the responsible Republican leaders. The commun- 
ications are presented in chronological order, without com- 
ment. Analysis, comparison and interpretation will follow. 



VII. 

On the 16th of May, The Press and Tribune of Chicago 
reprinted from Die Illinois Staats-Zeitung, the following letter 
addressed to the editor thereof, Mr. George Schneider : 

Galena, Illinois, May 11, 1859. 
My Dear Sir : 

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your favor 
of yesterday propounding to me the following questions : 

"1. Are you in favor of the naturalization laws as they 
now stand, and particularly against all and every extension of 
the probation [time] ? 

"2. Do you regard it a duty of the Republican party, as 
the party of equal rights, to oppose and war upon each and 
every discrimination that may be attempted to be made between 
the native-born and adopted citizens, as to the right of suffrage? 

"3. Do you condemn the late action of the Republicans in 
the Massachusetts Legislature, [for] attempting to exclude the 
adopted citizens of two years from the ballot-box, as unwise, 
unjust and uncalled for?" 

In answer to the first question I state that I am in favor of 
maintaining the present naturalization laws intact, and am utterly 
opposed to extending the time of probation. 

In regard to the second proposition : I most certainly regard 
it as one of the highest duties of the Republican party to resist 

— 31 — 



all discriminations betv/een native-born and adopted citizens as 
to the right of suffrage. 

Referring to the third question : I desire to say, I can find 
no language to express my abhorrence of the action of those 
Republicans in the Massachusetts Legislature who passed the 
law proposing the Amendment to the Constitution of that State, 
excluding the adopted citizens from the right of suffrage for 
two years, and also the Republicans otit of the Legislature who 
have just voted for the adoption of the Amendment. This 
action is the outgrowth of that "intolerant Know-Nothingism" 
which culminated in what is known as the "Heiss" of 1855 and 
is not only "unwise, unjust and uncalled for" but is a lasting 
disgrace and reproach to the State. Denouncing Know-Nothing- 
ism in the heyday of its power and strength, I should be unjust 
to myself if I did not now denounce its last and meanest act 
in securing the adoption of the illiberal, unnecessary and cow- 
ardly amendment to the Constitution of Massachusetts. The 
Republicans of Massachusetts — the Republicans in that State, 
who have voted for the amendment, have placed themselves 
beyond the pale of sympathy with the Republicans of the other 
states, who universally condemn their action and who will not 
hold themselves responsible for it in any way, shape, or 
nature. I am 

Very truly yours, 

(Signed) E. B. Washburne. 

Three days later the same journal reprinted from the Staats- 
Zeitung a letter from Congressman J. F. Farnsworth : 

St. Charles, May 13, 1859. 
Geo. Schneider, Esq., 

Editor "111. Staats-Zeitung." 

Dear Sir : — I have received your letter of the 10th, in which 
you allude to the Amendment of the Constitution of Massa- 
chusetts, recently adopted in that State, by which naturalized 
citizens are debarred the right of voting until two years after 
the period of their naturalization. 

Although this action of Massachusetts may be regarded as 
local, which cannot affect the citizens of other states, and with 
which we are not directly concerned, yet I fully agree with you 
in the expression that it is an "odious Amendment" — odious 
because it is insulting and unjust to that class of citizens who 
are affected by it. It discriminates between the native and the 
adopted citizen in favor of the former. That is wrong; and as 
a Republican, knowing something, I trust, of the principles of 
that party, and of the sentiments of its leading members, I 
believe I but echo the voice of the great mass of the Republican 
party when I protest against any attempt, come from what 
quarter it may, to fasten upon us or to make the Republican 
party in any manner responsible for a principle like that involved 
in the Massachusetts Amendment. 

In my opinion, nine tenths of the Republican delegation in 
Congress, at least, are opposed to any change of the present 

— 32 — 



naturalization laws. They are satisfied with those laws as 
they now are. 

These are at all events my sentiments, briefly expressed, 
and you are at perfect liberty to publish them ; indeed, I am 
glad of the opportunity your note affords me of uttering my 
opinions through the channel of your valuable paper. 
Very truly yours, 

J. F. FaRNS WORTH. 

On Saturday evening, May 14, the Republicans of Spring- 
field appear to have met in a general mass meeting in the hall 
of the Young Men's Republican Association. The nature and 
earnestness and design of their proceedings are exhibited in a 
most instructive manner in a special despatch that appeared 
at length in The Press and Tribune, May IS. The despatch 
with headlines follows : 

THE MASSACHUSETTS AMENDMENT. 

Resolutions of the Young Men's Republican Association at 
Springfield. 

"Correspondence of the Press and Tribune." 

Springfield, 111., May 15, 1859. 

I forward the accompanying copy of the resolutions adopted 
at a special meeting, held on the night of 14th inst., at the rooms 
of the Young Men's Republican Association, in accordance with 
the following resolution : 

Resolved, That the Secretary be instructed to send a copy 
of the resolutions adopted at this meeting to all the leading 
Republican papers throughout this State, with a request that 
they be published. 

Yours very respectfully, 

John C. Barker, 
Sec'y Y. M. R. A. 

At a meeting held at the rooms of the Young Men's Re- 
publican Association, on Saturday evening. May 14th, the follow- 
ing resolutions were unanimously adopted : 

Whereas, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, has by 
recent vote, sanctioned a law depriving the foreign born Amer- 
ican citizens of the elective franchise for two years after nat- 
uralization ; and 

Whereas, Silence thereto by political bodies elsewhere may 
be constructed as an approval of such provisions; and 

Whereas, It has been the practice of the (so called) Democ- 
racy, north and south, to lay to the charge of the Republican 
Party all their own petty meannesses ; and 

Whereas, The great Republican party in their platforms, 
and elsewhere, have repudiated every principle that would in 

— 33 — 



any degree recognize any distinction between their fellow citi- 
zens of foreign birth and others ; and 

Whereas, We hold that every true RepubHcan must rejoice 
at the manner in which the foreign vote has lately rebuked the 
demagoging Democracy, and shown, unequivocally, their warm 
love of Liberty and Equal Laws ; and 

Whereas, They are one with us in sustaining the great 
fundamental doctrine, enunciated by Jefferson, fought for by 
Washington, and defended and maintained by all the great and 
good of every country, clime and age, "That all men are created 
equal," therefore, 

Ist. Resolved, That we, Republicans of Illinois, regard with 
feelings of scorn, detestation and contempt any act calculated in 
any degree to overthrow the doctrines of the Declaration of 
Independence, be it from whom or where it may. 

2nd. Resolved, By the Republicans of the city of Spring- 
field, Illinois, that, disclaiming all right or inclination to inter- 
fere with the action of a sister State, we protest decidedly and 
solemnly against any provision by which a duly naturalized 
foreigner must be in the United States a period beyond five 
years, before he can lawfully vote ; and assert that no discrim- 
ination should be made, by amendment of a State Constitution, 
or otherwise, between citizens of foreign and citizens of native 
birth. 

Whereas, Our naturalized fellow citizens in the magnani- 
mous enthusiasm with which they vmited in our State, at the 
recent elections, with their American brethren, have proven 
themselves on the sacred side of Freedom and Reform, therefore 

Resolved, That we feel ourselves bound by every obligation 
of duty and honor to oppose earnestly and persistently every 
attempt to impair or abridge any privileges now enjoyed by 
them or their fellow immigrants. 

4th. And Whereas, In the firm and manly position taken 
by the Hon. Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, on the question 
of the naturalization laws, he has evinced the true principles and 
spirit of the doctrines of the Republican Party; as also have 
Messrs. Sclmrz of Wisconsin, Chase of Ohio, and Grimes of 
Iowa; therefore 

■ Resolved, That we most heartily concur in and endorse the 
course pursued by these honorable gentlemen, and herewith 
tender our most sincere thanks for the able manner in v/hich 
they have vindicated the integrity of the Republican Party. 

James Ousley, 
Jno. C. Barker, President pro tent. 

Secretary. 
Springfield, May 14th, 1859. 

The meeting at which the foregoing resolution's were 
adopted was not a dull, "cut and dried affair." There were 
speeches and apparently a generous outpouring of intense feel- 
ing. Among the speakers was no less a notable than Mr. Wil- 
liam H. Herndon, the law partner of Abraham Lincoln and 

— 34 — 



later his biographer. His speech was evidently esteemed of 
more than ordinary importance, cither by the speaker or by 
the audience, for it appeared at length in the columns of The 
Daily State Journal on May 17 in its account of the proceed- 
ings of the meeting of Saturday night, as follows : 

MASSACHUSETTS CITIZENSHIP. 
Speech of Wm. H. Herndon. 

Mr. Herndon, after rapidly surveying the state of Europe, 
and the European crisis, and the struggles of the people of the 
continent for liberty and nationality, complimented the Amer- 
ican people on their prosperity, peace and power, and spoke 
substantially as follows : 

Finally, Mr. President, we are gathered here in this hall 
tonight — we Republicans, native and foreign-born — for the spe- 
cial purpose of giving vent to our sentiments and expression to 
our ideas on the late act of Massachusetts in relation to her 
naturalized citizens. We Republicans, as citizens of this city 
and the State of Illinois, do not pretend that we have any 
right to dictate to a sister State of this Union what institutions 
she shall or shall not have. But as American citizens — as 
Republicans — we have some dear rights ; and when any law of 
any State projectingly acts upon us, reaches outside of that 
State, and by its spring and sweep, injuriously and destructively 
affects us, then we have an undoubted right to give speedy and 
quick utterance to our sentiments, and expression to our ideas 
in relation thereto. This far we go, but no farther. The late 
act of Massachusetts touches the whole Republican party from 
Maine to Georgia, and from New York to California, not only 
now, but far distant in the future, unless fully understood. 

It is now well understood in Massachusetts that the Democ- 
racy of that State is partially, if not wholly, responsible for the 
passage of the Constitutional provision, odious as it is. I now 
hold a letter in my hand from Boston, which says in substance 
"that the Democracy really wanted the law passed; some voting 
for it, some scattering tickets in its favor on the day of the 
election, and all wanting it to pass, and voting stoutly for it. 
They could have killed if it they had wished to do so." 

Were we not now quickly to speak out our ideas on this 
law of Massachusetts, it might be inferred, it would be meanly 
implied by the corrupt Democracy for political purposes, that 
the Republicans of Illinois approved of the act, together with 
its cruel and destructive policy, and rank injustice to our 
foreign-born citizens. The Republican principle on this ques- 
tion is — once an American citizen always an American citizen, 
with all the burthens, rights and privileges attaching thereto, and 
which is never to be taken away, except by forfeiture through 
the man's own acts. This law of Massachusetts denies or repud- 
iates this, and we, as Republicans, do now and here say that we 
most heartily and unanimously disapprove this law, because it is 
contrary to fundamental principles, and for the following 
reasons : 

— 35 — 



First, because it is impolitic, and second, because it is wrong 
and unjust to all that class of American citizens who happen to 
be born on European soil, and others not Americans. These 
citizens, intelligent, good and patriotic men, have fled from the 
towering oppressive thrones — iron chains and glittering bayonets 
of the despots of the Old World, and have landed among us 
to make this their adopted free homes, supposing that there 
would and should be equality — at least, as broad as that laid 
down in the Dred Scott case — among all American citizens. 
We see, however, that they are to be somewhat mistaken, if the 
Legislature of Massachusetts vitalizes this latent constitutional 
power by an operative act. 

This law is wrong and unjust. Once an American citizen 
always so. The Republicans all over this State have taken 
broad, deep and radical grounds against this law ; against its 
cruel impolicy and its stinging injustice; and so now and here 
tonight, in this Republican hall, we solemnly protest against it, 
in the name of Republicanism, and send out our protest to the 
world. 

I have as a Republican long since and often in speeches and 
in print — in private circles and on the stump, all over this State, 
expressed my views on this subject, and have said that I know 
of no distinction among men, except those of the heart and 
head. I now repeat that, though I am native born, my country 
is the World, and my love for man is as broad as the race, and 
as deep as its humanity. As a matter of course I include native 
and foreign people, Protestant and Catholic, "Jew and Gentile." 
I go the full length of justice to all men — equality among all 
American citizens, and freedom to the race of man. That 
party — that class — that man or party who adopts different ideas 
and expresses them by word or act — gives vent by tongue or 
deed to them — is cruelly or wickedly despotocratic, though it may 
call its principles Democratic. In the center of its heart it is a 
despotism, soon to bloom into one-man, iron-willed Absolutism. 
Names are nothing, but principles are as deep as the world. 
The roots of things — the purposes and intents — are the tests. 
Look at this — justice and liberty to all men, and then at this — 
justice and liberty to a special few, and they to judge of the 
times and necessities. In the one is Heaven's justice broad and 
deep, and in the other despotism. 

Republicans, score deep on your banner mortised and but- 
tressed on the Philadelphia platform, and let there be no cow- 
ardly dodging for timid policy's sake from this, this ever-living 
vital principle, liberty and equality to all American citizens, 
native or foreign born, and freedom and justice to the race of 
men around the globe. With these principles nothing can impede 
your young, living, irresistible power, or prove victorious over 
you, for you have the sweep and power of God's great rushing 
currents to bear you on to victory o'er the world. 

Mr. President, I conclude as I began, and by this principle 
I am willing to live or die — freedom and justice to all men — 
equality and liberty to all American citizens, native or foreign 
born, Protestant or Catholic ; and may the chains of universal 
or partial despotism on mind or body — on individual or the 
race, be shivered and broken and snapt ; and ring out loud and 

— 36 — 



long against the Bastile prison doors, crossed barred and iron 
grated^"Keeper, open this door and let us go out joyous, 
bounding and happy, for we too now are free by God's great 
law." 

Tuesday, May 17, was a busy day for the Republican lead- 
ers of Illinois, for on that date three of the prominent spokes- 
men of the party composed extended and important replies to 
letters addressed to them by committees of Germans asking 
them for specific declarations as to their attitude on the sub- 
jects referred to. One was written by Mr. N. B. Judd, as a 
member of the Republican State Central Committee; another 
was vvritten by Abraham Lincoln, and the third by Mr. Lyman 
Trumbull, \J. S. Senator. They are presented in the order 
named : 

Chicago, May 17, 1859. 
To Messrs. Theobald Pfeiffer, E. Violand and Louis Deider: 

Gentlemen : — Your communication on behalf of the German 
Club of Peoria reached Chicago during my absence in a neigh- 
boring State. 

The State Central Committee is composed of eleven mem- 
bers, viz. : two from the State at large and one from each Con- 
gressional District. The distance at which they reside from 
one another renders it impracticable to assemble the Committee 
to act upon the subject matter of your communication. I had 
supposed that the position of the Republican Party of Illinois, 
in upholding equality among citizens, whether native or adopted, 
and hence its opposition to any burdens or restrictions upon the 
right of suffrage that should distinguish between classes of citi- 
zens, was so well defined that it did not require a repetition. 
The first State assemblage in Illinois, called for the purpose of 
organizing a resistance to the slave oligarchy, and at which the 
Republican Party was organized, met at Bloomington on the 
29th day of May, 1856. 

That Convention did not limit its action to measures only 
looking to the resistance of slave encroachments upon the rights 
of freemen, but it met the other question of Proscription, and 
adopted the following resolution : 

"Resolved, That the spirit of our institutions, as well as 
the Constitution of our country, guarantees liberty of conscience, 
as well as political freedom ; and that we will proscribe no one, 
by legislation or otherwise, on account of religious opinion, or 
in consequence of place of birth." 

The Convention did not confine itself to words, but by its 
acts proved its good faith by nominating for some of its highest 
places your countrymen, Hon. Fred. Hecker and Hon. Francis 
A. Hoffman. 

The Convention that nominated John C. Fremont assembled 
at Philadelphia in June of that year, and it confirmed the posi- 

— 37 — 



tion taken by Illinois by adopting as a part of its National Plat- 
form the following resolution : 

"Believing that the spirit of our institutions, as well as the 
constitution of our country, guarantees liberty of conscience 
and equality of rights among citizens, we oppose all legislation 
impairing their security." 

The incorporation of that resolution into the Philadelphia 
Platform was effected principally by the united efforts of the 
delegates from the State of Illinois, and by no one was it urged 
more earnestly than by our German friends in the delegation, 
George Schneider of the Staats-Zcitung, Greiun (Grimm?) of 
Belleville and H. Kreismann of this city. In the contest that 
followed, the Illinois Republicans maintained the position thus 
taken. The party has had another State Convention, viz : in 
1858, and your countrym.an, Gov. Kcerner, was its presiding 
officer. Such have been the principles and practices of the 
Republicans in Illinois and the history of the party on this ques- 
tion of Proscription. 

The local history of the party will show that in all cases 
where it had the power, offices, honors and rewards have been 
meted out regardless of nationality or birthplace. The Repub- 
lican press condemned, in no measured terms, this unjust dis- 
crimination proposed by Massachusetts as wrong and anti- 
Republican in principle, and oppressive to that noble band of 
adopted citizens, who, believing in freedom, free labor, free 
homes and free lands, had, side by side v/ith the native-born, 
fought the political battles of freedom. 

As a member of the State Central Committee, it never 
occurred to me that any one could doubt the hostility of the 
party in this State to any change in the laws by which the 
equality among citizens should be disturbed. 

I believe that all the members of the committee agree with 
mic in the opinion that all discrimination between native and 
adopted citizens is unjust in itself and a violation of the equal 
rights which are the basis of our free institutions. The action 
of a small fraction of the people of Massachusetts is, in my 
opinion, an act of tyranny and oppression that should be rebuked 
by the Republicans throughout the Union. 
Respectfully yours, 

N. B. JUDD, 

Chairman Rep. State Cen. Coin. 

Wednesday morning, Ma}^ 18, the Daily State Journal of 
Springfield, contained the following editorial which is repro- 
duced in e.vtenso: 

MR. LINCOLN ON THE MASSACHUSETTS 
AMENDMENT. 

We are indebted to Dr. Canisius for a copy of a letter 
written by Mr. Lincoln, in reply to a note requesting his views 
upon the late action of the Slate of Massachusetts in restricting 
the right of suffrage. We subjoin the letter together with the 
note v.'hich accompanied it: 

— 38 — 



Springfield, May 17, 1859. 
Editors Journal : — 

I have received today a letter from Hon. Abraham Lincoln 
in regard to the "Massachusetts Amendment" and the proposed 
"fusion" of the Republican party with other opposition elements 
in 1860. This letter of one of the gallant champions of our 
State is in accordance with the views of the whole German 
population, supporting the Republican party, and also with the 
views of the entire German Republican press. It therefore 
would afford me pleasure if you would give it publicity through 
your widely circulated journal. 

I am, yours, etc., 

Theodore Canisius. 



Dr. Theodore Canisius : 



Springfield, May 17, 18.S9. 



Dear Sir: — Your note asking, in behalf of yourself and 
other German citizens, whether I am for or against the consti- 
tutional provision in regard to naturalized citizens, lately adopted 
by Massachusetts, and whether I am for or against a fusion of 
the Republicans and other opposition elements, for the canvass 
of 1860, is received. 

Massachusetts is a sovereign and independent State ; and it 
is no privilege of mine to scold her for what she does. Still, 
if from what she has done an inference is sought to be drawn 
as to what I would do, I may without impropriety speak out. 
I say, then, that as I understood the Massachusetts provision, I 
am against its adoption in Illinois, or in any other place, where 
I have a right to oppose it. Understanding the spirit of our 
institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to 
whatever tends to degrade them. I have some little notoriety 
for commiserating the oppressed condition of the negro ; and 
I should be strangely inconsistent if I should favor any project 
for curtailing the existing rights of zvhite men, even though 
born in difi:erent lands and speaking different languages from 
mj'self. 

As to the matter of fusion, I am for it, if it can be had on 
Republican grounds, and I am not for it on any other terms. 
A fusion on any other terms would be as foolish as unprincipled. 

It would lose the whole North, while the common enemy 
vfould still carry the whole South. The question of men is a 
different one. There are good patriotic men and able statesmen 
in the South, whom I would cheerfully support if they would 
now place themselves on Republican ground ; but I am against 
letting down the Republican standard a hair's breadth. 

I have written this hastily, but I believe it answers your 
questions substantially. 

Yours truly, 

A. Lincoln. 



We are glad Mr. Lincoln b.as written this letter. It is 
plain, straightforward and directly to the point. It contains not 
one word too much, neither does it omit anything of importance. 

— 89 — 



Mr. Lincoln occupies the same ground as does the entire Repub- 
lican party of the nation, and his letter will meet with their 
cordial concurrence and sympathy. 

The next day, Thursday, the State Journal contained the 
following response of Senator Lyman Trumbull to a letter ad- 
dressed to him by Dr. Canisius, Charles Hermann and others, 
the same committee probably that addressed Mr. Lincoln ; the 
editorial comment in introduction closed with the observation : 
"It has the ring of true metal." 

Alton, 111., May 17, 1859. 
Messrs. Theodore Canisius, Charles Hermann and Others : 

Gentlemen : — Unlike some of our political opponents who 
refuse to express their opinions on the propriety of introducing 
slavery into Kansas, because they do not live in the Territory, 
saying that if the people of Kansas [want it] it is their right to 
have it, and if they do not want it, they may, if the courts will 
let them, exclude it, and it is nobody's business out of the 
Territory, which they do, I am ready on all proper occasions to 
express my condemnation of illiberal and anti-Republican move- 
ments, no matter where they originate. 

Loving freedom and hating despotism, I can never be indif- 
ferent as to which shall prevail in any country, and while I 
recognize the authority of each State in the Union to determine 
for itself the qualifications of its voters, I deny the position 
assumed by our opponents, that the citizens of every other State 
are precluded from the expression of any opinion as to the 
propriety of its action. I have, therefore, no hesitation in 
answering your inquiries in regard to the recent amendment of 
the Massachusetts constitution, excluding persons hereafter 
naturalized, for two years thereafter, from the right of suffrage. 
Such a provision creates an unjust discrimination between citi- 
zens, violates the great principle of equal rights, and is in the 
very teeth of the Republican creed. Massachusetts in adopting 
it has placed herself in opposition to every other Republican 
State, and to the Republican party in the country, which stands 
pledged in its National platform to oppose all legislation impair- 
ing equality of rights among citizens. While, therefore, I con- 
demn the action of Massachusetts, I think the course of the 
Democrats, in striving to make political capital out of it, deserv- 
ing of still greater condemnation. In the first place they stultify 
themselves before the country and repudiate the so-called great 
principles of leaving the people of each state perfectly free to 
form and regulate their own domestic institutions in their own 
way, by saying anything about the internal affairs of Massa- 
chusetts. Their mouths, if governed by principle, should be 
forever shut, no matter what Massachusetts has done. Secondly, 
they themselves in their attempts to deprive foreign residents 
in Alinnesota of any participation in the formation of their 
State government, and rights of suffrage, long enjoyed, were 
guilty of greater outrage than the people of Massachusetts, for 
the latter (as I understand) have not attempted to interfere 

— 40 — 



with the rights of suffrage enjoyed by foreigners now residents 
of the State, but only to prescribe a different rule for those who 
shall come hereafter ; while the Democratic party, not of an 
isolated State, but of the Nation, undertook in Congress to 
take away from persons of foreign birth, then residing in Min- 
nesota, the right of suffrage which under previous acts of Con- 
gress and the Territorial Legislature they had long enjoyed. 
In this attempt they were defeated by the Republicans. Let 
Democrats answer for this attempt of the majority of their 
party in the nation to rob foreign residents in Minnesota of 
previously vested rights, before they attempt to arraign Repub- 
licans of the Nation for the action of a few in Massachusetts, 
contrary to the declared creed of the party. 
Very respectfully, 

Lyman Trumbull. 

On May 21, The Press and Tribune contained the follow- 
ing resolutions adopted at Peoria: 

"Resolutions of the Republicans of Peoria." — At a meeting 
of the Republicans of Peoria, of which Dr. J. D. Arnold was 
the President and Wm. L. Avery Secretary, L. R. Webb from 
the Committee on Resolutions reported the following, which 
was unanimously adopted: 

The Republicans of the city of Peoria, in meeting assembled, 
for the purpose of considering the recent act of the people of 
Massachusetts imposing additional restrictions upon the rights 
of suffrage of foreign-born citizens of that State, do 

Resolve, That, as one of the charges preferred by our fore- 
fathers in the Declaration of Independence against the King of 
Great Britain was that he was endeavoring to prevent the popu- 
lation of these states, for that purpose of obstructing the law 
for the naturalization of foreigners and refusing to encourage 
their emigration hither, so we, viewing the recent unjust, oppres- 
sive and intolerant action of the people of Massachusetts, 
believe it to be incumbent on us to denounce the same in un- 
measured terms, as directly promoting the very evils our fore- 
fathers complained of, and as contrary to the spirit of our free 
institutions. 

Resolved, That believing, as we do, that the people of Illi- 
nois are greatly indebted to the foreign-born citizens for the 
absence of human slavery in our midst, and its numerous 
attendant evils, and also believing that the spirit of our institu- 
tions and the constitution of our country both guarantee liberty 
of conscience and equality of rights among citizens, we deem it 
to be the policy and the duty of the Republican party to invite 
and encourage the affiliation and cooperation of all men, foreign 
as well as native, to the end that the cause of freedom may be 
promoted and the material growth and prosperity of our 
country may be augmented. 

The two letters which follow were taken from the same 

journal from which the resolution just given is reprinted. The 

first one appeared in the issue of the 24th and the second in 

— 41 — 



the issue of the 26th. The reasons for the delay in their pub- 
lication in the American press was probably due to the cir- 
cuitous transmission they underwent. Translation for the 
pages of the Staats-Zeitung, to whose editor they were both ad- 
dressed, and then their subsequent publication in The Press 
and Tribune. 

Princeton, May 18, 1859. 
Editor of Illinois Staats-Zeitung: 

Dear Sir : — I have received yours of the 16th inst., request- 
ing my views on the following questions : 

"1. Are you in favor of the naturalization laws as they 
now stand, and particularly against all and every extension of 
the probation [time] ? 

"2. Do you regard it a duty of the Republican party, as 
the party of equal rights, to oppose and war upon each and 
every discrimination that may be attempted to be made between 
the native-born and adopted citizens, as to the right of suffrage? 

"3. Do you condemn the late action of the Republicans in 
the Massachusetts Legislature, [for] attempting to exclude the 
adopted citizens of two years from the ballot-box, as unwise, 
unjust and uncalled for?" 

In reply I would say, that I am in favor of the naturaliza- 
tion laws as they are, and should oppose any law calculated to 
prejudice the rights of the adopted citizen. This is in substance 
a reply to your second question. It is, without question in my 
mind, the mission and duty of the Republican party to oppose 
all and every discrimination between the adopted and native 
citizen. In this respect there should be one rule for the stranger 
and the home born. 

In answer to the third inquiry I do not see what moral 
right the Massachusetts Legislature or the majority of her 
people have to suspend [or] temporarily to abrogate, for it 
amounts to this, the right of suffrage of a certain class of her 
citizens. The amendment, therefore, to which you allude, is, 
in my opinion, "unwise, unjust and uncalled for." I deprecate 
this the more as it tends to distract and alienate those from co- 
operation with the Republicans who are really with us in regard 
to the great objects we would achieve. Mj^ notions of human 
rights are such as to incline me to the largest liberality in 
bestowing the right of suffrage. Whoever is arrayed on the 
side of Freedom in its conflict with Slavery, of whatever clime 
and of whatever creed, the same politically is "my mother and 



sister and brother." 



Yours truly, 

Owen Lovejoy. 



42 — 



Chicago, May 20, 1859. 
Editor Staats-Zeitung: 

Dear Sir : — On my return from Supreme Court last evening, 
I found your note of the 18th, asking my opinion as "Chairman 
of the Republican Central Committee of Chicago" of the recent 
Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution. 

I understand that Amendment to impose upon naturalized 
citizens a restriction of the right of suffrage not required of 
citizens born in this country. I regard this as unwise, unjust, 
anti-Republican, and against the spirit, if not the letter, of the 
Constitution of the United States. When the Constitution gave 
to Congress the power "to establish an uniform system of nat- 
uralization," and provided "that the citizens of each State should 
be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of 
the several States," it certainly could not have been expected 
that any State would impose restrictions upon the exercise of the 
rights of suffrage not required by the naturalization laws of the 
Federal Government. 

But whatever m.ay be the Constitutional right of Massa- 
chusetts to adopt this amendent, I regard it as most unwise, 
unjust, and antagonistic to the great principles upon which the 
Republican party is based. It is unwise and unjust to create a 
distinction between a native and a naturalized citizen. When a 
man becomes naturalized, he voluntarily adopts our country as 
his own. He makes our country his country by choice, by 
preference. He becomes one of us. His home is with us. His 
fortunes, his interests, his family, his all, bccom.e identified with 
ours. Is it not as wise as it is just, that when he has thus 
clothed himself with the rights of American citizenship, he 
should be made to feel that he was a welcome addition to the 
great brotherhood of freem.en whi-h compose the Republic? _ 

While all must respect the feeling of attachment with which 
all good men remember their Fatherland, yet it is clearly the 
policy of our country so to treat her adopted citizens as to 
make them regard all nationalities as secondary to the grand 
idea of American citizenship. . • ,• ,• • 

This amendment, creating, as it does, an mvidious distinc- 
tion has a tendency to keep alive and active that class feeling 
which all should seek to suppress. This discrimination which it 
creates is as unjust to the memory of the dead as it is to the 
worth and merit of the living. The history of our country is 
brilliant with the names of those born in a foreign land, whose 
lov- of our free institutions induced them to connect their 
fortunes with ours. The names of La i^ayette, of Gallatin, Kos- 
ciu'^ko Pulaski, De Kalb, Steuben, Emmett, and many others 
in our earlier and later history, show that however a narrow 
and illiberal feeling may have at times manifested itself in par- 
ticular localities, our country as a whole, in its policy towards 
the foreign-born, has been liberal and generous. Indeed, it_ is 
so obviously the interest of our country to encourage emigration 
and thereby develop our vast territories still unimpaired, that 
no other policy can prevail. The advantages of "r-'^g/^tio" 
here at the West, and especially to our own State and City, are 
so apparent, there has never been ^ny difference of opinion 
among us on the subject. Our naturalized citizens have brought 

— 43 — 



industry, enterprise, wealth, good morals, and all the elements 
of prosperity to the Northwest, and here they have engaged in a 
generous and not unsuccessful rivalry with us, in building up 
and advancing the prosperity of our common country. I am sure 
there are none among us who would lessen their privileges. The 
policy of encouraging immigration and felicitating the settlement 
and naturalization of foreigners among us, in the early history of 
the Republic, found its most earnest advocate in Thomas Jeffer- 
son, that great statesman v/hose disciples are today found in the 
Republican party alone. In this policy, as upon the question of 
slavery, the so-called Democratic party has abandoned the prin- 
ciples of Jefferson. He embodied in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, as one of the grounds of separation from the mother 
country, that "He (the King of Great Britain) has endeavored 
to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose 
obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners, etc." 

The Republican party, recognizing as the basis for their 
organization the great principles of liberty so earnestly advo- 
cated by Jefferson, are seeking to bring back the Government to 
the policy of its founders. Since the so-called Democratic party 
has passed into the exclusive control of the Slave Power, it has 
very naturally manifested a jealousy of the free labor of 
the Old World, and its policy towards it has been narrow and 
unjust. The rapid addition of Free States in the Northwest, 
the result, in a large degree, of the emigration from abroad, has 
very naturally alarmed the Slave Power. Hence the illilseral 
provision of the Kansas-Nebraska acts ; hence the voting down 
by Democratic slaveholding Senators of the amendments pro- 
posed by Republican Senators, to encourage the settlement of 
the public lands. Hence the defeat, by the same influence, of 
the Homestead Bill ; hence the efforts of the pro-slavery Demo- 
cratic party to extend slavery over free territory; hence the 
infamous Kansas outrages and Lecompton swindle. 

The policy of the Republican party is to secure the unoccu- 
pied portion of this continent to the free labor of the world. 
The Democratic party controlled by the Slave Power is strug- 
gling to Africanize it, to appropriate it to slave labor. Hence 
that party is the natural enemy of the free labor which comes 
to us from abroad. The issue for 1860 is made up. The 
triumph of the Republican party will secure the public lands to 
free labor, without regard to birth-place. 

The triumph of the Democratic party will secure, so far 
as the influence of the Federal Government can control it, the 
territories to slave labor. To furnish means of accomplishing 
this the slave trade is already openly, and under a Democratic 
Administration, carried on with impunity. 

With this great issue before us, I doubt not the American 
and German Republicans will be found fighting side by side for 
freedom and free labor. 

Our only strife will be to see who will do most to secure 
the success of those great principles of universal liberty which 
animate alike the American and the German Republican. 
Very truly yours, 

Isaac N. Arnold, 
Chairman Republican Central Committee. 

— 44 — 



Sufficient has been given, perhaps, to indicate the intensity 
of pubHc interest during May in the "Two Year" Amendment 
among the electors of Illinois. The assertion, however, be- 
comes incontrovertible if one will examine the amount and 
character of the attention given the subject in the foremost 
papers of Illinois, if we merely note the number of editorials ; 
if we canvass the character of their expression and their 
length if we list the number of reprints of articles from other 
papers dealing with the subject, of communications thereon, of 
resolutions and speeches dealing with the Amendment. Some- 
what of the attention and space devoted to it may be inferred 
from foregoing exhibits but the intensity of public interest can 
best be realized by a mere catalog of the titles. As a summary 
and premise for the analysis which follows two lists are here 
given. They are taken from two of the leading dailies of 
Chicago : The first from a Republican organ ; the second from 
a Democratic organ. 

The Press and Tribune contained the following articles, edi- 
torial and other : 

April 29 — "Republican State Central Committee of Iowa and the 
Naturalization Question" — Reprint of resolutions. 

May 5 — "Massachusetts" — Editorial. 

May 6 — "The Two Year Amendment in Massachusetts" — Editorial. 

May 6 — "The Massachusetts Two Year Amendment" — Letter from 
Senator Grimes of Iowa — Reprint. 

May 11 — "Two Year Amendment in Massachusetts" — Editorial. 

May 11 — "Gov. Chase on Naturalization" — Editorial. 

May \A — "The Massachusetts Amendment" — Editorial. 

May 16 — "The Massachusetts Amendment" — Letter from Hon. 
E. B. Washburne — Reprint. 

May 17 — "The Massachusetts Amendment" — Editorial. 

May 18 — "The Democracy and the Massachusetts Amendment" — 
Editorial. 

May 18 — ^"The Massachusetts Amendment — Resolutions of the 
Young Men's Republican Association of Springfield" — Reprint. 

May 21 — ^"The Massachusetts Amendment:" (1) "Lincoln's Letter 
to Dr. Canisius." (2) "Resolutions of the Republicans of Peoria." 
(3) "Speech of W. H. Herndon." 

May 23 — Senator Trumbull to Dr. Canisius. 

May 23 — L N. Arnold to Editor of Illinois Staats-Zeitung. 

May 24 — "The Massachusetts Amendment." Reprints Lovejoy's 
Letter to Editor of Illinois Staats-Zeitung. 

May 26 — "The Massachusetts Amendment." Reprints Judd's Let- 
ter to Germans of Peoria. 

May 28 — Letter of F. B. Blair on the Massachusetts Amendment. 

— 45 — 



The Chicago Times, the particular organ of Senator Doug- 
las, during the same period, had the following articles upon 
the same subject: 

June 6— Reprint of Ohio State Republican Platform. 

May 5— "The Proscription of Foreigners"— Editorial. 

May 7— "A Silly Effort to Shirk Responsibility"— Editorial. 

May 11— "Interesting to Adopted Citizens"— Editorial. 

May 13— "Republicans and the Two Year Amendment"— Editorial, 

May 17 — "Governor Banks and the Two Year Amendment" — 
Editorial. 

May 19 — "Republicans and Foreigners" — Editorial. 

May 22 — "The Panic in the Republican Party" — Editorial. 

May 24— "Mr. I. N. Arnold's Letter"— Editorial. 

May 26— "Where is Mr. Judd?"— Editorial. 

May 27 — " 'Gov' J'udd's Letter" — Editorial. 

June 2 — ^"The Republicans and Their Negro Allies in Massa- 
chusetts" — Editorial. 

June 10 — "The Disabilities of Non-Citizens" — Editorial. 

June 15 — "Naturalization and Voting" — Editorial. 

Editors of our daily press are keen watchers of the currents 
and tides of popular interest. They are concerned with little 
else and give scant consideration to dead eddies, mere drift 
wood and back wash. They are seldom aroused by abstrac- 
tions, "mere theories" or remote eventualities. The clash and 
clutch of human interests in the madding crowd hold them 
always in thrall. 

VIII. 

The exhibits just given indicate beyond all cavil that the 
Republicans of Illinois felt that they confronted a crisis and 
they appreciated that instant and decisive action was impera- 
tive if the plans of the party in the impending national cam- 
paign were not to be upset and their chances of success in 
1860 obliterated. Sundry facts are worthy of note. 

The Germans of Illinois took their cue manifestly from 
the Germans of Iowa. This is obvious in the letters addressed 
by Mr. Schneider to Congressmen Farnsworth, Lovejoy and 
Washburne : for the questions the latter specifically answer are 
precisely those drafted by Dr. Hillgaertner, et al., and pre- 
sented to Senator Grimes and Harlan of Iowa. Mr. Schneider 
probably acted on his own initiative in presenting the inter- 
rogatories ; but it would not be strange if Dr. Hillgaertner had 

— 46 — 



first suggested the manoeuvre to him, as he was famihar with 
German leaders in Chicago and intimately acquainted with the 
editorial force of the Staats-Zeitung. 

There was not, however, the concerted action in Illinois 
that there was in Iowa. Mr. Schneider appears to have acted 
singly and for himself in the letters he addressed to Messrs. 
Farnsworth, Lovejoy, Washburne and Arnold. Two of his 
letters were dated on the 10th ; one on the 18th and the other 
on the 20th. Committees seem to have been organized as in 
Iowa but without concert of action, one with another. Thus the 
committee at Peoria does not appear to have included the mem- 
bers of the one at Springfield. Dr. Theodore Canisius, Charles 
Hermann and others at Springfield addressed the same letter 
to Messrs. Lincoln and Trumbull. 

The influence of proceedings in Iowa on the course of 
events in Illinois is indicated not only in the similarity of the 
methods pursued, in the questions submitted, and in more or 
less concert of action, as in Iowa, but in the particular men- 
tion of Senator Grimes — naming him with Senator Wilson of 
Massachusetts and Mr. Carl Schurz of Milwaukee — in the res- 
olution adopted at Springfield on the night of May 14. The 
specific commendation of Iowa's junior Senator is rather sub- 
stantial evidence indicating the direct and positive influence of 
the antecedent developments in Iowa upon the course of events 
in Illinois. 

The stress of things produced by the demand of the Ger- 
mans for explicit declarations from the Republican leaders 
in and about Chicago is illustrated by a minor incident not un- 
instructive here. Mr. N. B. Judd, next to Messrs. Lincoln 
and Trumbull was perhaps the most influential party chief 
among the Republicans of Illinois, at least of northern Illinois. 
For some reason his letter of May 17, of even date with Lin- 
coln and Trumbull's responses to Dr. Canisius was not published 
in the American papers until May 26. Apparently the fact that 
he had been addressed by Messrs. Peiflfer, Violand and Deider 
of Peoria was either known or suspected ; for on May 26, The 
Times of Chicago came out with a half column leader headed : 
"Where is Mr. Judd?" The public was told that "Washburne, 

— 47 — 



Lovejoy, Trumbull, Arnold, Lincoln and a number of Repub- 
licans in Illinois have published letters repudiating the actions 
of the Republicans of Massachusetts * * but never a word 
from Mr. Judd." The Democrats had a fine opportunity for 
first class bear-baiting and did not refrain. Mr. Judd's letter 
appeared in The Press and Tribune on the same morning that 
The Times contained the editorial just cited. 

If any additional proof were needed to clinch the assertion 
of The Express and Herald of Dubuque, that the Republicans 
of Illinois were in a real panic it is abundantly afforded 
in the contents of the resolutions adopted at Peoria and Spring- 
field. Their language not only imports that the Germans had 
been grossly mistreated, insulted and outraged by the "Two 
Year" Amendment in Massachusetts but it declares that the 
liberties and the best memories of the American people were 
thereby assailed and put in danger. One of our major griev- 
ances against King George III was his harsh treatment of the 
forbears of the Germans and for them our fathers spilt their 
blood and treasure in the glorious revolution. More than this 
the Peorians proclaim that the freemen of the North and of 
Illinois in particular were "greatly indebted to the foreign born 
citizens for the absence of slavery in our midst and its numer- 
ous attendant evils." Such allegation, while interesting and 
instructive and supremely flattering to the amour propre of the 
sensitive Germans, must have been astonishing information to 
lusty Americans and Know-Nothings, information that must 
have produced either complete stupefaction or intense exasper- 
ation and revulsion. But whether true or fallacious, the fact 
that the Republicans of Peoria would thus proclaim their ap- 
preciation of the momentous influence of the Germans in our 
common life and polity from the outset of our national life 
demonstrates the alarm, not to say the desperation, of the Re- 
publican managers in Illinois in May, 1859. 

The same conclusion follows from the character of the 
contents of the resolutions adopted at Springfield. Their lan- 
guage is not so pronounced and sweeping as was the case with 
those adopted at Peoria — the difference in the number of Ger- 
mans in the immediate neighborhood may account for the dif- 

— 48 — 



ference in the ardor and anxiety displayed — nevertheless the 
same alarm is exhibited. Moreover, it was displayed in a prac- 
tical fashion that indicated that the party managers deemed en- 
ergetic action urgent. The managers and the mass meeting 
directed the officers of the meeting to send copies of the res- 
olutions to all parts of the state and to secure their widest pub- 
lication. Such a proceeding by practical politicians in the state 
capital, at the instigation, or at the least with the approval of 
the party chiefs, was a fact of the deepest significance. Little 
bands or groups of missionaries and philanthropists frequently 
proceed thus, without political significance ; but such a meeting 
as that on the 14th of May in the Republican Hall and such a 
series of resolutions and such a program of propagandism were 
facts of maximum political significance. 

Contemporary accounts do not show whether or not Mr. 
Lincoln attended the meeting at Springfield on May 14 ; but it 
is unlikely that he did do so, as the fact would have been widely 
heralded. We may assume that the meeting, however, was not 
without his knowledge and approval for it is inconceivable that 
local leaders, many of whom were ardent promoters of his po- 
litical interests, would go ahead reckless of his adverse opin- 
ion. This conclusion is almost compelled by the presence and 
participation in the proceedings of his law partner, Mr. Wm. 
H. Herndon. Partners in practical business are not necessarily 
co-workers in politics. But in this instance there was complete 
reciprocity of interest — although not perfect accord always in 
practical application of views or concurrence as to time and 
place for expression or action — and a mutual consideration that 
makes certain the conclusion that Mr. Herndon did nothing and 
said nothing that night without feeling that his distinguished 
associate in business was not only not averse but approved. We 
may presume confidently that there had been more or less con- 
ference between them and other local leaders as to the nature 
of the danger threatening from the Germans. 



— 49 — 



IX. 

The various letters from the Republican leaders present 
sundry interesting and some very instructive phases. They 
vary widely in the art of their expression, in the tactics of the 
writers, in the degrees of prudence and in the vehemence dis- 
played in discussing the various phases of the matter in issue. 
The art of Mr. Lincoln's letter to Dr. Canisius, its political 
significance and its superior efficiency can only be appreciated 
by close comparison. 

The kindest, the mildest letter, in some respects the most 
considerate of the sensibilities of opponents is that of Con- 
gressman Lovejoy's. He is concise and unequivocal. He con- 
fines himself entirely to dissent from the principle of the act 
but refrains from harsh criticism of those responsible for the 
"Two Year" Amendment. There is a grace and charity that 
seems remote from the hurly-burly and clash of politics. It 
suggests the idealist and philanthropist, the philosopher and the 
preacher, rather than the keen, poised politician, alert to con- 
serve his forces and counterbalance against reaction. 

Congressmen Farnsworth and Washburne indulge in strong 
language. Mr. Farnsworth brands the act of Massachusetts 
as "odious," pronounces it "insulting and unjust" and "pro- 
tests" against any one charging the Republicans with respon- 
sibility therefor. Congressman Washburne is much more ve- 
hement and sweeping in his observations. He asserts his "ab- 
horrence of the action of those Republicans of Massachusetts." 
He refers to it as "this last and meanest act ;" as a recurrence 
of "Intolerant Know-Nothingism ;" and he proclaims that the 
Republicans of Massachusetts who supported the Amendment 
had "placed themselves beyond the pale of sympathy" of Re- 
publicans elsewhere who "universally condemn their action." 

Such characterization no doubt effectively expressed the 
feelings and the sentiments of the Congressmen quoted and no 
doubt thoroughly satisfied the utmost demands of the Ger- 
mans immediately in mind. But such vigor, such slashing epi- 
thet and vehemence of denunciation "cut both ways", as ex- 
perienced politicians know full well. The physical law of ac- 

— 50 — 



tion and reaction operates in politics. Such language would 
produce resentment and recrimination among "Americans" 
and sometime Know Nothings and among all those in Massa- 
chusetts who had given countenance and support to the Amend- 
ment in question. If the majorities in their respective districts 
made Congressmen Farnsworth and Washburne safe and in- 
different to the feelings of those criticized, or of their friends 
and sympathizers, they might be reckless as to consequences. 
Otherwise they were imprudent and impolitic. If either Con- 
gressman had or might have some far-reaching plans, the reali- 
zation of which ultimately depended upon the good will and 
concurrence of fellow Republicans in Massachusetts, New Jer- 
sey and other states where sentiments similar to those preva- 
lent in Massachuetts were not uncommon, then such harsh 
and sweeping criticism and denunciation were not merely im- 
prudent but utter folly. 

The letters of the two party field marshals, Messrs. I. N. 
Arnold and N. B. Judd, were much more effective in these re- 
spects. They were very adroit in their comment and prudent 
in their criticism. There is little or nothing in their letters 
that would arouse virulent retort or produce violent resent- 
ment. Each one dwells upon the positive and substantial ef- 
forts of the Republican Party to encourage liberal legislation 
in state and national government beneficial to the foreign born. 
Mr. Arnold enlarges effectively upon the studied discrimination 
enforced or urged by the pro-slavery leaders in Congress against 
foreigners in recent or in pending legislation — especially in the 
Homestead bills. Mr. Judd was particularly strong in the pre- 
sentation of his views. He emphasized the well known efforts 
of the Republican party and its leaders not only to insure the 
foreign born equality before the law but also to promote Ger- 
mans in respect of public honors. Of the letters of both it may 
be said that while both easily commended themselves to Ger- 
mans and both were lacking in harsh comment which would 
provoke counteraction, both would dull and deaden the ener- 
gies of Americans and nativistic propagandists. Their con- 
tents would enhance the chances of Republican success in and 
about the cities of Chicago, Peoria or Quincy, but not in the 

— 51 — 



counties of Logan, Madison, ]Mason, Morgan and Sangamon, 
counties, wherein Southerners swarmed and old-hne Whigs 
and supporters of Filhuore predominated. 

Senator Trumbull's letter is especially interesting in con- 
trast with those just named and with that of his great con- 
temporary. It is a strong letter, as we should anticipate from 
a statesman of the large calibre and staunch character of Sen- 
ator Trumbull. But while he delivers some vigorous thrusts 
and satisfies the most captious of Germans, his letter does not 
stand comparison with the other letter addressed to Dr. Cani- 
sius on the same date, neither in style nor in substance. 

Senator Trumbull needlessly asserts his courage. His char- 
acter had been thoroughly tested and was well known to be 
stout and staunch. He does not berate his fellow Republicans 
in Massachusetts with harsh epithets that burn or scar, 
but he does present his criticism of Massachusetts in 
such a way as to make his fellow Republicans in that 
Commonwealth sting with the implications of his char- 
acterization. In what possible way could he in that year 
of grace have been more severe upon the electors of Massa- 
chusetts than by the deadly parallel he bluntly suggests between 
the iniquities in Kansas under the ruthless slavocrats and the 
injustice done the foreign born and naturalized citizens by the 
discrimination enforced against them in the Commonwealth 
whose citizens serenely assumed primacy in culture and 
Christianity ; and on occasion were not averse to asserting their 
superiority ? Even ardent Abolitionists of the Garrisonian per- 
suasion might conceivably resent such a damnatory implication. 

He concedes the right of a State under our Federal scheme 
to conduct its domestic policy as its electors may deem appro- 
priate, yet he contradicts his concession by the nature of the 
criticisms he applies. A right in law implies a duty on the 
part of others to respect its exercise and to submit in silence or 
with grace if we disapprove. 

Senator Trumbull's condemnation of the Democrats be- 
cause they sought to make "political capital" out of the act of 
the Republicans et al. in Massachusetts must have produced a 
sardonic smile when Democrats read it or heard of it. He 

— 52 — ■ 



counters with but little force when he shows that the Demo- 
crats really were as bad as the Republicans in this matter, and 
even worse because they were doing violence to their pet 
dogma of popular sovereignty when they criticized the electors 
of Massachusets for enacting the "Two Year" Amendment. 
The inference from this counter was again the deadly par- 
allel between Kansas and Massachusetts. 

He seems to make a more vigorous and effective thrust 
when he refers to the effort of the Democrats to deny the right 
of suffrage to aliens resident in Minnesota at the time the act 
for the admission of that state into the Union was on its pas- 
sage through Congress. Conceding the point his counter as- 
sertion was negative : it meant that the Republicans were as 
bad as the Democrats and Germans could not count upon su- 
perior treatment from the Republicans. To say that the other 
fellow is just as bad as we are or given to like reprehensible 
tactics is public confession that our course is not creditable. 
Senator Trumbull, however, shot wide of the real mark, and 
for him, strangely missed the real point in issue in his refer- 
ence to the constitution of Minnesota. The two cases were not 
coincident or parallel at all. In the case of Minnesota the 
Democrats sought merely to deny the right of suffrage under 
the new constitution submitted to Congress to aliens, to-wit, 
foreign born not yet naturalized. Their design did not affect 
naturalized citizens adversely in any manner. In Massachu- 
setts, on the other hand, naturalized American citizens, the 
peers under our great Federal charter and laws of any and all 
of the lineal descendants of the Pilgrim fathers were specifical- 
ly barred from equal rights and privileges in the electoral fran- 
chise, until they could certify an additional residence of two 
years. This was a bald and open discrimination between Ameri- 
can citizens. A Carl Follen, a Francis Lieber, a Carl Schurz 
did not have the same right in respect of the ballot and public 
office in the Great Commonwealth of the Puritans that an igno- 
rant, stupid, vicious runaway Negro from the Dismal Swamp 
enjoyed after a single year's residence. This was a blazing 
contrast that loomed huge and disagreeable on the horizon and 

— 53 — 



explanation or palliation but aggravated the offense. Frank 
disapproval alone sufficed. 

Senator Trumbull wrote Dr. Canisius, as he spoke in the 
arena. He had his eye fixed solely upon the great enemy of the 
public welfare as he viewed the prospect, namely the Pro-Slav- 
ery party, and he directed his fire chiefly with that opponent im- 
mediately and ultimately in view. The allurement of Germans, 
the prevention of their defection, the allayment of their dis- 
content and suspicion in order that their numbers and tre- 
mendous energy as one of the major corps of the Anti-Slavery 
forces might be conserved and enhanced — such was the primary 
consideration of Senator Trumbull. The intense feelings of 
"Americans" and Nativists ; the keen sensibilities of puritani- 
cal folk who disliked the liberal notions and jovial customs of 
the foreign born ; the rancorous hate of religious fanatics and 
the persistent malevolence of nativistic zealots and factionists 
— these matters that count always and must always be included 
carefully in the reckoning were not foremost in Senator Trum- 
bull's mind and they do not appear to have received any inci- 
dental consideration. The possibility, let alone the probabil- 
ity that the potency of the Germans had an equivalent correla- 
tive that could prove no less potent for good or ill to the great 
cause he sought to promote by his letter to Dr. Canisius does not 
appear to have been in contemplation. 

X. 

The speech of Mr. Herndon, Mr. Lincoln's law partner, at 
the Republican Hall, Springfield, Saturday night. May 14, is in 
many respects one of the most interesting exhibits of all those 
given. His speech, like the resolutions, was given extensive 
publication. It appeared not only in the State Journal at the 
capital and in The Press and Tribune at Chicago, but it was 
printed at length in Garrison's Liberator at Boston, April 8. 

The prominence of Mr. Herndon in the meeting in the na- 
ture of the case suggests concert of action between himself 
and his distinguished partner. In the first place it may be 
doubted if any serious political movement was undertaken by 

— 54 — 



the Republican leaders of Springfield between 1856 and 1860 
without the immediate knowledge and advice, or general ap- 
proval of Mr. Lincoln. The fact that Mr. Herndon's speech 
was printed at all and so widely published, suggests prear- 
rangement in the well known law office on the Courthouse 
square. The intimacy of the partners, their general harmony 
of views and Mr. Herndon's hearty desire to further the am- 
bitions and advancement of his associate are well known, and 
any other conclusion is inconceivable. 

Mr. Herndon's speech, however, was not in his best vein. 
Its style is rather highflown and the reasoning sentimental ; not 
nearly so strong as his published correspondence and his Life 
of Lincoln demonstrate him to have been capable of when at 
his best. It may not be fair to hold him accountable for what 
may have been a hastily written newspaper report of his 
speech, but its character and contents indicate strongly that 
the printers set it up from prepared copy. 

There is not a little in the speech that smacks of Garrison- 
ian idealism and Nev/ England transcendentalism. His phil- 
anthropy embraces the world and includes high and low alike. 
The idealist, however, keeps his feet on the ground. He dis- 
plays the practicality of the wily politician and plays directly 
upon the sensibilities of the Germans with the zeal of the av- 
erage stump speaker. 

He apparently made a wide survey of the struggles of 
European peoples for freedom and constitutional government 
and insinuated, if he did not directly assert, that the French, 
the Germans, the Greeks, the Hungarians, the Italians, were all 
of the Lord's elect, all parts of one stupendous whole that 
comprehends the European refugee and the hapless slave. 
Much of his reasoning, however, will not stand sharp scrutiny. 
This fact arouses no little curiosity as to the actual knowledge 
his law partner had of the speech before it was delivered and 
before its publication. For his associate in business would not 
have made the errors in tactics and the slips in prudence that 
stand out so clearly in Mr. Herndon's speech. 

Mr. Herndon declares that whenever the act of a state 
"projectingly acts upon us, reaching outside and by its swing 

— 55 — 



and sweep, injuriously and destructively affects us", then we 
— the citizens of sister states, nearby or remote, as the case 
may be — have a right to protest and, of course — if he means 
anything by the term protest — ^to take adequate measures to 
nullify such action. Such reasoning, when advanced by the 
Southern statesmen in rejoinder to hostile legislation in North- 
ern states, was invariably treated with vaulting scorn by anti- 
slavery spokesmen. 

He follows the lead of The Press and Tribune in alleging 
that the Democrats really conceived and pushed forward the 
unjust amendment in Massachusetts against which the Ger- 
mans protest. He informed his audience and the state and 
nation at large that the Democrats "could have killed it if they 
had wished to do so." The letter from a correspondent in 
Boston, to which he refers, was doubtless from his long time 
intimate friend, Theodore Parker. 

The total vote for the Amendment in the official returns 
reached only 21,119. That number was less than a third of 
the vote cast for Gov. Banks in 1856, who received 69,049 
votes ; and it was less than a fifth of the total vote cast for John 
C. Fremont for President in 1856, whose vote was 108,020. 
In other words, of the Republican electors in Massachusetts 
alone, there were four times as many who stayed at home on 
May 9 and either refused or neglected to vote against the 
Amendment. The entire Democratic vote in Massachusetts, 
either in 1856 or in 1858, did not aggregate 40,000. Mr. Hern- 
don was not one to permit himself to deal in gross perversions 
of figures or facts, but like many another "progressive" in these 
advanced days, he was more or less heedless, not to say reck- 
less, in assertion in the press and rush of controversy. 

In some respects the most astonishing statement in Mr. 
Herndon's speech is his declaration : "Once an American citi- 
zen, always an American citizen." Such an assertion without 
qualification must have aroused violent memories in the minds 
of veterans of the War of 1812, who either heard or read his 
speech. It was in large part as a protest against this very 
doctrine that our nation waged a two years' war with Great 
Britain. Within a month four out of every five Republican 

— 56 — 



papers, and virtually all anti-slavery journals in the north were 
to break forth in one terrific chorus of furious denunciation of 
the concession by President Buchanan's venerable Secretary 
of State, Lewis Cass, of this self-same doctrine here pro- 
claimed by ]\Ir. Herndon, and Germans were to prove the most 
vigorous and the most vehement protestants against the doc- 
trine which was then asserted by Austria, France, Germany 
and Russia against their emigrant sons. For years southern 
slaveowners and southern leaders had maintained that once a 
slave, always a slave, and they insisted on applying precisely 
the same principle to their fugitive chattels, no matter how long 
they might reside in friendly northern states and no matter 
what status might be conferred upon them by friendly legis- 
lation in their northern habitats. Yet their contention was 
universally treated with withering scorn by Abolitionists and 
anti-slavery Republicans. 

Excluding the considerations here adverted to, which usual- 
ly are matters of little concern to any but the hypercritical who 
count for little in the clash and clinch of party strife, Mr. Hern- 
don's speech had no little strength. His humanitarian senti- 
ments were generous and glowing with ardent feeling. His 
Democracy comprehended all classes alien and native, black 
and white, Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, high and 
low. One law for all, one test of character and conduct under 
the law, equality of opportunity and uniformity of treatment 
under the constitution and the laws ; these were ideals that 
commend themselves and compel acceptance. Germans must 
needs applaud. 

In the light of the antecedent and collateral facts just 
exhibited, let us examine the character and contents of Abra- 
ham Lincoln's letter to Dr. Theodore Canisius. 

XL 

The most noteworthy fact about Mr. Lincoln's letter to Dr. 
Canisius, it is not extravagant to say, was the mere fact that 
the letter itself was written and given out to the public. The 
writer was not only not much given to letter writing, but on 

— 57 — 



principle studiously avoided committing his views on moot 
matters to paper. He was an exceedingly able and alert prac- 
tical politician and he knew the fatalities attendant upon effu- 
sive epistolary declarations. He was afraid of the notable 
inopportuneness or unwisdom of publication amidst the kaleid- 
oscopic changes of politics and the constant shifting of public 
interest.^* There must have been a serious exigency that com- 
pelled him to put himself thus on paper as he did in his letter 
of May 17 to the committee of Germans of the state capital. 

The letter of Mr. Lincoln, like the one of Senator Grimes, 
was a model of conciseness and lucidity, pith and point. He 
expresses dissent and disapproval of the act of Massachusetts, 
but he hits the nail and nothing else. He does not enmesh him- 
self as did so many of his confreres in a network of ugly im- 
plications. His language neither burns nor scars, yet it is 
luminous and flashes far and wide a principle of human equal- 
ity that critics could not deny and those for whom it was in- 
tended would greet with hearty applause. He did not lay about 
with cat— o-nine tails or "go after" the foolish patriots and phil- 
osophers of the Old Puritan Commonwealth. At the same time 
he struck straight out at the act complained of by the Germans. 

The letter to Dr. Canisius exhibits the surefooted lawyer, 
who is scrupulously observant of principle and realizes the 
depth and sweep thereof and the ground fact that a right, when 
it exists, must compel respect for those exercising it, as the 
correlative duty that insures the realization of the right. Thus 
his frank assertion that he had no right to "scold" the people 
of Massachusetts for their determination as to a matter of 
internal administration. But his explicit declaration to this 
effect is not inconsistent with his immediate assertion that he 
was opposed to the principle and policy of the Amendment in 
Massachusetts and that he would oppose its adoption in Illi- 
nois and in the federal jurisdiction wherever he had a legal 
right of expression and action. 

" See Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by M. M. Miller, Vol. IX. 
Letters to Schuyler Colfax and to Geo. D. Prentice. The latter Lincoln 
held for some time in his possession, uncertain as to the advisability of 
forwarding. 

— 58 — 



While there is no "protest" against the act of Massachu- 
setts, no denunciation and no ugly implications in Air. Lincoln's 
communication which could give just offense to his fellow Re- 
publicans in that state, nevertheless, his letter does plainly pro- 
nounce the "Two Year" Amendment unjust and to be deplored. 
We cannot, in the nature of the case, exercise our just right 
of public discussion whereby we may condemn and deplore 
an act or policy without thereby passing an adverse judgment 
upon the persons or party responsible therefor. If, as he al- 
leged, the spirit of our institutions "aim at the elevation of 
men", his assertion that he was consequently "opposed to 
whatever tends to degrade them," was a severe reflection upon 
proposers of the act in question. But the sturdy sons of Mas- 
sachusetts could not complain of this inference, for Democracy 
and free speech are not possible otherwise. 

The most severe reflection upon the recent act of Massa- 
chusetts is strikingly suggested in Mr. Lincoln's reference to 
his reputation — "notoriety", as he phrases it — "for commiser- 
ating the oppressed condition of the negro," which might be 
expected to cause him to oppose "any project for curtailing the 
existing right of white men, even though born in different 
lands and speaking different languages from myself." This 
bare suggestion — or more correctly, this slight hint, so con- 
cise is his language — comprehends and meets the bitterest com- 
plaints of the protesting Germans and the most contemptuous 
and damaging denunciation of the Democrats. It exalted the 
central principle of all the anti-slavery forces and none of the 
leaders of the Opposition in Massachusetts could take just ex- 
ception to the inference to be drawn therefrom. 

The curious and the cynical may be asking the question 
whether or not the sentiments given expression in the response 
to Dr. Canisius reflected deep seated convictions or merely the 
opinion of the moment compounded of dread of party defeat 
and desire to placate the belligerent Germans. Mr. Lincoln was 
a politician par excellence, whose weather-eye was both keen 
and farseeing. His contemporaries and his biographers all tell 
us, and his writings all confirm their opinion, that he was al- 
ways guided in matters of grave concern by basic principles 

— 59 — 



and not by the vagrant winds of popular prejudice and passion 
or the fitful gusts of popular fancy or fury. Conclusive proof 
of this assertion is afforded us in his striking letter addressed 
to his boyhood friend, Joshua F. Speed of Louisville, on 
August 24, 1855, towards the close of which occurs precisely 
the same sentiment expressed four years later to Dr. Canisius : 
"I am not a know-nothing; that is certain. How could I be? 
How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in 
favor of degrading classes of white people ?"^^ 

The distinguished Republican leader of Illinois was not 
in deed or in thought "playing" to the German vote in 1859. 
His expression on May 17 was the considerate outgiving of 
conviction arrived at years before when malevolent fanati- 
cism was sweeping over the nation in ruthless tides, wrecking 
party crafts and blasting hopes and dreams of place and power 
and only those who had the stuff of true patriots and staunch 
statesmen in their makeup could resist the fury of the on- 
slaught. 

Mr. Lincoln's courage and farsightedness were displayed 
no less conspicuously in his answer to the inquiry of Dr. Cani- 
sius' committee, anent his attitude towards "fusion" of the 
Republicans "with the other opposition elements for the can- 
vass of 1860." Here again we have downright expression, con- 
cise and unequivocal, hitting the mark only. If we lacked evi- 
dence of his courage, clear-headedness, large-mindedness and 
far-sightedness, we have it in this portion of his reply. And 
again, his frankness under the circumstances not only elicited 
the applause of friends, but compelled the admiration of party 
opponents and factional critics. In order to appreciate the signi- 
ficance of his expression we must realize somewhat of the drifts 
of political discussion among the Republicans of the other Op- 

^^ The balance of the paragraph is not uninteresting: 
"Our progress in degeneracy appears to be pretty rapid. As a 
nation we began by declaring tliat 'All men are created free and 
equal.' We now practically read it 'All men are created equal, except 
negroes.' When the Knownothings get control, 'AH men are created 
equal, except negroes, foreigners and catholics.' When it comes to 
this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no 
pretense of loving liberty, — to Russia, for instance, where despotism 
can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy." 

— 60 — 



position elements in the country at large in the four months 
preceding. 

In December 1S58 Greeley's Tribune had suggested that 
it would be wise for the opponents of slavery to consider the 
feasibility of a working alliance and suggested that the Repub- 
licans nominate the candidate for Vice President and the other 
Opposition elements pick the candidate for President. The 
realization of this proposal seemed to give the whip hand to 
the old-time Whigs and tl^e followers of ex-President Fillmore, 
chiefly know-nothings and "Americans." Discussion was drift- 
ing in this direction when on April 26 Greeley published a pow- 
erful leader on "The Presidency in 1860." After showing in 
some detail the distribution of the Fremont and Fillmore votes 
in 1856 and demonstrating that the opponents of the Pro-slav- 
ery Administration, if they would but consolidate their forces, 
had a decided preponderance in the forthcoming contest, The 
Tribune said : 

"Of course it is plain that a substantial, practical union of 
the electors who supported Fremont and Fillmore respectively, 
insures a triumph in 1860, even though there should be a scal- 
ing off on either side, as there possibly would be. We can af- 
ford to lose one hundred thousand of the Opposition vote in 
1856 and still carry the next President by a handsome majority." 
The editorial then proceeds to point out that there is no ma- 
terial difference between the Whigs and the Americans on the 
subject of slavery and then observes as to candidates : "Most 
certainly we should prefer an original Republican — Governor 
Seward or Governor Chase — but we shall heartily and zealous- 
ly support one like John Bell, Edward Bates or John M. Botts, 
provided that we are assured that his influence, his patronage, 
his power, if chosen President, will be used, not to extend 
slavery, but to confine it to the states that see fit to uphold it." 

These sentiments of Greeley's paper — all of which must 
strike all to-day as preeminently sane and the very essence of 
common sense in practical politics — aroused the country over 
a veritable storm of protest and contemptuous comment from 
the radical and irrepressible anti-slavery editors and spokes- 
men. They immediately suspected the suggestion to be a 

— 61 — • 



Machiavellian proposal ; at best naught else than a concession 
that meant capitulation involving the abnegation of the party of 
freedom, another miserable compromise with the forces of 
darkness whereby principles gave way to policy and plunder. 
And the stiffbacked radicals would have none of it. 

Greeley's editorial produced a violent reaction among the 
Germans. The German press, after the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise, was by a considerable majority, radical and out- 
spoken in its opposition to slavery, opposed to its extension and 
opposed to its very existence and not averse to summary meas- 
ures for its extinction. The iniquities of the institution — par- 
ticularly the frightful phases of the enforcement of the Fugi- 
tive Slave law — and some of the assertions of the Supreme 
court in the case of Dred Scott reminded "Forty-eighters" of 
the processes of tyranny under the oppressive rule of their 
Fatherland which they fled in 1848 and later years. An alli- 
ance, or any formal affiliation with the conservative whigs 
who resisted any interference with the rights of slaveholders 
aroused them to protest. Another fact provoked their wrath 
and fury. 

Greeley's willingness to join with the "Americans" of the 
South and the remnants of the Know-nothings in the North was 
to Germans an unspeakable abomination, for their memories 
were full of bitter recollections of the harsh and mean and 
often brutal persecutions they endured during the heyday of 
Know-nothingism. As Germans regarded them, Messrs. Bates, 
Bell and Botts stood foremost in the country as sanctioning 
narrow, proscriptive legislation and by their silence, if not by 
speech, giving their countenance to the brutalities of Know- 
nothingism. Greeley's suggestion meant an unholy alliance 
with the powers of evil and hence the point blank question in 
Dr Canisius' letter to Mr. Lincoln — did he favor the "fusion" 
of the Republicans with the "other Opposition elements for 
the canvass of 1860?" Needless to say, the inquiry was grand 
strategy and masterly tactics — a tremendous drive at the very 
centre of the war zone. 

Dr. Canisius and his confreres knew that there was in- 
tense and widespread opposition to "fusion" among staunch 

— 62 — 



anti-slavery folk, and they knew too, that Mr. Lincoln was 
aware of the intense feelings of the Germans in respect of 
anything that smacked of Know-nothingism. With Germans 
universally aroused in alarm and protest against the "Two 
Year" amendment, their plump question at that juncture was 
in truth a crucial test of the character and capacity of the man 
addressed. And with royal certitude he promptly replied. 

Mr. Lincoln did not hedge himself about with saving clauses 
that would enable him to face both ways and deny or assert as 
circumstances and variable attacks might make convenient. He 
declared in the most direct, straightforward manner that he 
was in favor of fusion with any and all elements of the Oppo- 
sition if the terms of the alliance could be arranged satisfac- 
torily. There was one central fact — an irreducible minimum — 
on which all could stand, to-wit, antagonism to the extension 
of slavery. Idealists and realists, liberals and conservatives, 
could come together on this common ground. All can unite 
easily and effectively upon a universal issue. The great objec- 
tive is the defeat of the party in power that favors or protects 
the evil complained of, and ballots, like bullets, are impersonal. 
It matters little or nothing whence they come if thereby oppon- 
ents are routed and driven from place and power. Those who 
desired the overthrow of the Pro-slavery party should not 
stickle at minor and subsidiary considerations. If such matters 
were to be contemplated it would not be long before such petty 
considerations as diet, clothes and family would determine 
party action, and chaos would ensue. 

Any dodging or juggling on the subject of slavery was 
given no countenance whatever. Any color of compromise 
on principle would be "as foolish as unprincipled ;" and he 
would not lower the Republican standard by "a hair's 
breadth." But with this sine qua non assured Mr. Lincoln 
was frank to the point of bluntness. He would join forces 
with any party or faction, or group and he would follow the 
lead of any tried and true standard bearer whose character 
and guidon would inspire confidence and afford the greatest 
hope of success. And he states bluntly that he would 
"cheerfully support" a number of "good and patriotic men 

— 63 — 



of the South" if they would "place themselves on Republican 
ground." In the light of then recent discussion such an as- 
sertion could have meant but one thing. Mr. Lincoln would 
support Messrs. Bates, Banks, Bell, Botts or Cameron, should 
any one of them be nominated. To give out such a statement 
and right into the teeth of the militant Germans, was either a 
most daring and reckless assertion of independence or it was 
an act of supreme sagacity and perfect politics. 

The premises of perfect politics, in the old Greek sense 
of the term, are what Montesqieu would declare to be the 
"necessary relations of things," or as Carlyle later was wont 
to put it, "the eternal verities." The premises Abraham Lin- 
coln rarely failed to discern and to comprehend, and when 
realized he stood squarely thereon, regardless of the dissent 
or doubts or dread of shifty and timid souls about him. In 
the art of politics, in the adjustment of procedure to principles 
and prudence, the distinguished Republican leader of Spring- 
field was a past master and his ability and achievement were 
never more effectively demonstrated than in his response to 
the interrogatories of Dr. Canisius and confreres. 

Dr. Canisius, in his letter to the editor of the Daily State 
Journal, communicating Mr. Lincoln's reply of May 17, de- 
clared that the response "of the gallant champion of our state 
is in accordance with the views of the whole German popula- 
tion, supporting the Republican party, and also with the views 
of the entire German Republican press." This statement, of 
itself, is a superb tribute to Mr. Lincoln's sagacity and 
staunch character as a practical politician, who is the real 
statesman in fact. It signified instant approval of his posi- 
tion and views when he normally might have anticipated for 
a portion of his letter, disfavor, if not violent dissent. 

Dr. Canisius indulged in excessive statement when he in- 
formed the State Journal that "the whole German popula- 
tion" and the "entire German Republican press" concurred 
in Mr. Lincoln's views. The editor of Der Illinois Staats- 
Anseiger apparently allowed his intense satisfaction over Mr. 
Lincoln's unqualified expression of disapproval of the princi- 
ple of the "Two Year" Amendment to induce the generous 

— 64 — 



conclusion that Germans were no less accordant with his views 
anent "fusion", but he was seriously in error as the develop- 
ments of the next twelve months demonstrated. At no time 
before the national Republican convention met at Chicago, 
May 16, 1860, was any considerable proportion of the German 
Republican press agreeable to the nomination of Bell or Bates 
or Botts. The candidacy of Judge Bates had been announced 
some time before and his friends were promoting it vigorously, 
but the German press, generally speaking, treated it with either 
contemptuous silence or with downright denunciation. This 
hostile attitude steadily increased among the radical Germans 
until March it lead to an organized movement that gave a 
quietus to the hopes and plans of the friends of Judge Bates 
at the Chicago convention. But this is another story. 

The matter of importance and of chief significance, how- 
ever, is not the exact truth of Dr. Canisius' statement in his 
letter to the State Journal that Mr. Lincoln expressed the 
views of German republican editors, but the mere fact that he, 
Dr. Canisius, should so assert his belief and thereby express 
his great satisfaction with the reply of his fellow-townsman to 
the interrogatories of his Committee. 

XII. 

During; his public career Abraham Lincoln wrote some 
notable letters, justly celebrated for their felicity and force 
of expression, their acumen and profundity, and marvelous 
effectiveness, but it may be doubted if he ever wrote any let- 
ter with greater skill and effect than his letter to Dr. Theo- 
dore Canisius. The literary art of the letter was perfect; di- 
rectness and simplicity of language; neither fine writing nor 
magniloquence and no ponderous platitudes ; merely lucid, 
luminous assertion strictly confined to the naked issue. As 
the editor of the State Journal appropriately put it: there 
was not a word too much and every word was needed. 

In his response Mr. Lincoln not only satisfied the militant 
Germans, but he fastened them to him with hoops of steel 
by his subtle reference to his well knov^•n views and course re- 

— 65 — 



specting slavery, as a solid reason for his opposing any pro- 
posal that so much as squinted towards the political degrada- 
tion of any class or body of white men. But he did so with- 
out giving just offense to those who might differ with him in 
opinion and conduct. There was a nice appreciation and ob- 
servance of legal limits and rir?;hts of action and discussion 
and a perfect grace of reference and courtesy in consideration 
of the sensibilities of all directly and indirectly implicated. 

But, while Mr. Lincoln satisfied the Germans completely 
on the major and immediate issue with which they were con- 
cerned, and his character and conduct as a public man gave 
them perfect confidence as to his sincerity and reliability, he 
did not go precipitately into denunciation of all dissentients. 
He frankly asserted his willingness to co-operate with those 
who held views contrary to his own on collateral and minor 
issues and he declared himself in language no man could mis- 
understand. He thereby cleared himself of adverse charges 
and dissipated all suspicions as to himself and at the same 
time extended and strengthened his own or his party's lines 
and made easy the way for alliances and affiliations with im- 
portant contingents necessary if victory in the impending na- 
tional campaign was to be achieved. 

In the concluding sentence of his letter Mr. Lincoln says : 
"I have written this hastily." The statement is subject to 
various interpretations. It may mean precisely what it says, 
that he replied instantly to the interrogatories of the Com- 
mittee of Germans who addressed without taking days for de- 
liberations. Senator Grimes replied on the same day he re- 
ceived the letter from his fellow-townsmen of Burlington. But 
if it was intended to convey that he had written on the spur 
of the moment, without having given the subject much serious 
consideration, we may take it with several grains of salt. He 
was too familiar with the strange turns and twists of practi- 
cal politics to be unmindful of the dangers of hasty, ill-con- 
sidered expressions of opinion on moot matters, particularly 
when committed to paper. Letters may prove to be as trouble- 
some as Banquo's ghost, appearing at every turn of the road 
in the most unexpected fashion. 

— 66 — 



For two months Mr. Lincoln had been reading or notic- 
ing accounts in his own state papers and in the press in the 
east of the intense and widespread agitation among the 
Germans produced by the proposal and adoption of the "Two 
Year" Amendment in Massachusetts, and he was too alert 
and able a politician not to have been pondering upon the im- 
port and probable consequences of the agitation. When the 
Republican state central committees of Wisconsin and Iowa 
put forth their protests against the Amendment, when Sena- 
tor Grimes' letter was published in his own home paper and 
generally throughout the Republican press of the state, both 
German and American, he became keenly alive to the serious- 
ness of the menace the agitation was to the future success 
of the Republican party in the great contest rapidly approach- 
ing. The letter to Dr. Canisius represented the reflections of 
weeks, however quickly written. When a master craftsman 
pens a line, ''hastily written", it does not mean heedlessly 
written. 

Mr. Lincoln's letter was written, we must conclude, pri- 
marily and chiefly with the approaching national Republican 
convention in contemplation. At the time he wrote the na- 
tional committee of the party had not decided on the place of 
meeting, and he could not of course have presumed very 
strongly upon the selection of Chicago as the place of meet- 
ing. Ardent Westerners were then concerting plans to bring 
the convention west of the mountains. The party leaders of 
Pittsburg, Wheeling, Cincinnati and Indianapolis were several- 
ly hopeful that they might secure the prize for their own city. 
Chicagoans were then no doubt conscious of local ambition 
and looking with covetous eyes. Was Mr. Lincoln conscious 
of any stirrings of personal ambition and hopes that the de- 
liberations of the convention might mean much for him as 
he penned the letter to Dr. Canisius? There is not a little to 
make one so conclude. 

The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 had made Mr. Lin- 
coln a national figure. Immediately anti-slavery and Republi- 
can papers began to suggest him for consideration for the 
forthcoming national convention as a suitable candidate for 

— 67 — 



the second and first places. Two or three ilkistrations may 
suffice to warrant the assertion just made. On November 24 
The Marshall County Times, pubHshed in east central Iowa, 
told the Republicans of Illinois "to hang out their banners. 
. They may see their gallant Old Abe in the United 
States Senate and mayhap as its presiding officer." Three 
days later (Nov. 27) The Eagle published at Sioux City, Iowa, 
then the extreme northwest frontier town of the state, in 
dealing with "speculations", considers the suggestion of The 
Chicago Democrat that he be considered for the first place on 
the ticket. On December 2 The Sioux City Register, a Demo- 
cratic paper, in discussing Greeley's scheme for doing away 
with national conventions, named Mr. Lincoln as one of the 
candidates for which Illinois would ask the electors to vote 
for President. This mention of the RepubHcan leader of 
Springfield became more frequent during 1859. Of this fact 
we may certainly presume that Mr. Lincoln was aware, for 
his many friends and admirers would see to it that he was 
duly informed. In the national convention of his party in 
1856 at Philadelphia he had received 110 votes for Vice Presi- 
dent. He would not have been an ordinary mortal if he had 
not been stirred deeply by such expressions and suggestions 
and such events. His most intimate friends and associates, his 
closest observers, e. g., Messrs. Herndon, Trumbull and 
White, tell us that he was ambitious for political preferment 
and indulged in no pretentious modesty about the matter, al- 
though he was extraordinarily adroit in furthering his am- 
bition and in securing the co-operation of friends without ob- 
vious effort so to do. We know that various admirers were 
pressing upon his attention, in the forepart of 1859, the ad- 
visability of actively seeking the presidential nomination. His 
various letters, in reply to such, modestly discounting or deny- 
ing his fitness or chances, signify no substantial contradic- 
tion. It was not inconsistent with a keen ambition and lively 
hope that Fortune might smile with favor and his heart's 
desire might be realized. 

In view of the tremendous public interest among Repub- 
licans and Democrats as to the probable consequences of the 

— 68 — 



violent agitation among the Germans over the conduct of 
Massachusetts and the great national distinction of Abraham 
Lincoln at the time we must conclude that in writing to Dr. 
Canisius he had not only the fate of the Republican party in 
the canvass in 1860 in mind, but especially his own probable 
consideration as a candidate of high potential for the greatest 
honors his party could confer. Any other conclusion would 
do violence to ordinary human nature as we know it. And 
this conclusion coincides precisely with the subsequent course 
of events, and makes clear transactions that otherwise would 
be inexplicable. 

XIII. 

Biographers of President Lincoln, and historians of the 
period immediately preceding the Civil War have, with one 
exception, exhibited little or no appreciation of the strategic 
significance of his letter to Dr. Canisius. Several do not no- 
tice it at all. Several refer to it or quote portions or all of 
the letter, some without comment and some with observations 
upon the liberality of the writer's views, but with no indica- 
tion of a realization of the importance of the letter in rela- 
tion to contemporary and subsequent events. Dr. J. G. Hol- 
land, alone, so far as the present writer can discover, dis- 
cerned its vital significance and in his Life of President Lin- 
coln, clearly pointed out the fact — but only so far as it re- 
lated to the Germans.^® Its importance with regard to the Na- 
tivistic elements was not appreciated. It is not uninteresting 
to note here that Dr. Holland was one of the associate editors 
of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican in 1859, whose editor- 
in-chief, Samuel Bowles, vigorously opposed the adoption of 
the "Two Year" Amendment, and hence his appreciation of 
the part the letter to Dr. Canisius played in the campaign that 
ensued. 

Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, in their Abraliaui Lincoln, also 
quote at length from the letter to Dr. Canisius, but unlike Dr. 
Holland, saw in it apparently merely a statement of his "op- 
position to the waning fallacy of know-nothingism," the views 

"Holland, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 197. 
— 69 — 



therein being interesting on philosophical grounds but of mi- 
nor importance and in the grand aggregate of passing signifi- 
cance in the course of events ; such at least seems to be the 
clear inference from their allusion to it.^" 

In the published Recollections of two distinguished Ger- 
mans, Messrs. Gustav Koerner and Carl Schurz, the "Two 
Year" Amendment is of course referred to because both men 
were prominent actors in the drama of the period, and they 
dwell upon its importance, but the deep significance of the 
letter to Dr. Canisius is not indicated. Gov. Koerner merely 
mentions it in his Memoirs/^ and Carl Schurz does not so 
much as refer to it either in his Reminiscences or in his Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

Such non-interest in the letter to Dr. Canisius by two such 
German notables, and contemporary actors in the drama dealt 
with, may seem to warrant suspicion of the validity of the con- 
clusion herein insisted upon as to the strategic importance of 
Mr. Lincoln's letter. The point contended for cannot be easily 
established because it is a relative matter and the fact in con- 
templation can not be measured or weighed or estimated in 
any wise save from different angles and baselines, which may 
afford us views that give us correct perspectives. 

Dr. Holland's judgment was expressed in 1865-66 while 
his recollections of personal experiences and observations of 
the actual preliminaries of Mr. Lincoln't first nomination 
were still vivid. Messrs. Koerner and Schurz wrote after 
nearly half a century had elapsed. They naturally enlarged 
upon the matters in which they were personally immediately 
interested : their own part in the drama. A petty fact, but 
one that may indicate somewhat of the effect of the flight of 
the years, is Mr. Schurz's assertion as to his celebrated speech 
in Faneuil Hall on April 18 of that year; "Perhaps it did con- 
tribute," he says, "a little to the defeat of the Two Year' 
Amendment."^" Within three weeks of the date of his speech 
the "odious Amendment" was carried at the polls ! 

" Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A "rlistory, Vol. II — 181. 
" Koerner Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 181. 
" Schurz, Reminiscences. Vol. II, p. 126. 
— 70 — 



The facts herein set out at such length, it is submitted, 
fully justify the present writer's contention that the letter to 
Dr. Canisius was a fact of the highest strategic importance 
and was recognized as such at the time. The judgments of 
historians ex post facto, like the recollections of actors long 
distant from the days and scenes of events related, are as 
likely as not to deal with the spectacular facts that loom large 
in popular memory, rather than with the minutia that con- 
stitutes the mass of reality and in the large controls the course 
of things. Contemporary opinion, when it can be clearly dis- 
cerned and assembled and displayed, is a more accurate and 
substantial judgment than the solemn pronouncements of 
learned "research" historians. The pithy letter of Dr. Cani- 
sius himself to the editor of The Daily State Journal com- 
municating Mr. Lincoln's reply, indicates very clearly how 
highly he esteemed the letter. He was manifestly alive to the 
nation-wide interest in any opinion Mr. Lincoln would express 
and he was more than pleased, he was delighted, to secure 
the explicit declaration from his fellow townsman. The ex- 
tensive circulation given the letter in the German and Ameri- 
can press signalizes it, and the contemptuous reference of The 
Daily Express and Herald of Dubuque, quoted at length in 
the first page of this study, to "the whole brood of Republi- 
can leaders from Lincoln to Wentworth," and their "disclaim- 
ers" strongly suggest the conclusion here urged. 

The most interesting parcel of evidence as to the signifi- 
cance of the letter to Dr. Canisius is afforded us in a letter 
written nearly two months later to Mr. Schuyler Colfax, then 
one of the foremost Republican leaders of Indiana and of 
Congress. It portrays vividly the troublesome perplexities 
and the ticklish questions that were then harassing the prac- 
tical party leaders. It should further be realized that the 
writer was then one of the keenest, shrewdest, most active 
and farseeing practical politicians in the nation. His letter is 

given entire : 

Springfield, 111., July 6, 1859. 
Hon. Schuyler Colfax : 

My Dear Sir : — I much regret not seeing you while you 
were here among us. Before learning that you were to be at 

— 71 — 



Jacksonville on the 4 I had given my word to be at another 
place. Besides a stroi ^ desire to make your personal acquain- 
tance, I was anxious to speak with you on politics a little more 
fully than I can well do in a letter. My main object in such 
conversation \vould be to hedge against divisions in the Repub- 
lican ranks generally, and particularly for the contest of 1860. 
The point of danger is the temptation in different localities to 
"platform" for something which will be popular just there, but 
vvhich, nevertheless, will be a firebrand elsewhere, and espe- 
cially in a national convention. As instances, the movement 
against foreigners in Massachusetts ; in New Hampshire, to 
make obedience to the fugitive slave law punishable as a crime; 
in Ohio, to repeal the fugitive slave law ; and squatter sov- 
ereignty, in Kansas. In these things there is explosive matter 
enough to blow up a dozen national conventions, if it gets into 
them, and what gets very rife outside of conventions is very 
likely to find its way into them. What is desirable, if possible, 
is that in every local convocation of Republicans a point should 
be made to avoid everything which will disturb Republicans 
elsewhere. Massachusetts Republicans should have looked beyond 
their noses, and then they could not have failed to see that 
tilting against foreigners would ruin us in the whole Northwest. 
New Hampshire and Ohio should forbear tilting against the 
fugitive slave law in such a way as to utterly overwhelm us in 
Illinois with the charge of enmity to the Constitution itself. 
Kansas, in her confidence that she can be saved to freedom on 
"Squatter Sovereignty," ought not to forget that to prevent the 
spread and nationalization of slavery is a national problem, and 
must be attended to by the nation. In a word, in every locality 
we should look beyond our noses ; and at least say nothing on 
points where it is probable we shall disagree. I write this for 
your eye only; hoping, however, if you see danger as I think 
I do, you will do what you can to avert it. Could not sugges- 
tions be made to leading men in the State and Congressional 
conventions, and so avoid, to some extent at least, these apples 
of discord? 

Yours very truly, 

A. Lincoln. 

Manifestly with such clear foresight and such strong con- 
victions and sense of caution it must have been an urgent 
belief that a serious danger threatened the Republican party 
in 1860 that could have compelled Mr. Colfax's correspondent 
to pen the letter to Dr. Canisius' committee on May 17. In- 
deed, it must have been a state of mind approximating the 
"panic" contemptuously asserted by Mr. J. B. Dorr of Du- 
buque. 

Furthermore, Mr. Colfax's correspondent at Springfield 
w^as obviously gravely concerned lest the forthcoming na- 
tional convention "blow up" with the heat engendered by local 

-— 72 — 



issues and there are many reasons t( suspect that he was not 
immediately concerned with local interests or nearby constitu- 
encies. Senator Trumbull was not seriously urged for nomi- 
nation for either the Vice-presidency or the Presidency. Mr. 
Lincoln was being urged then in various parts of the country 
and he was aware of the fact. His injunction to maintain 
strict secrecy as to his writing is highly suggestive that his 
own possible personal fortunes were not remote considerations 
in his mind. But whether he was specifically conscious of 
such a possible personal interest in the ingathering of the 
forces, his letter to Mr. Colfax was pre-eminently prophetic 
and accurately described the actual developments in the pre- 
liminaries and proceedings of the Chicago convention. 

XIII. 

In the way of a summary, the following general assertions 
seem to be warranted : 

The submission of a proposed amendment to the constitu- 
tion of Massachusetts by the General Court of that Common- 
wealth denying the electoral franchise to foreign-born citizens 
until they could certify a residence of two years after natural- 
ization aroused Germans to violent indignation and protest 
throughout the nation and particularly in the states of the 
Northwest in the forepart of 1859. 

Republican editors and spokesmen instantly very generally 
perceived that the discontent of the Germans and their threat- 
ened revolt from the Republican party because of the pro- 
posed Amendment in Massachusetts constituted a serious men- 
ace to their party in the approaching national presidential can- 
vass of 1860. 

The Germans of eastern Iowa under the leadership of Dr. 
George Hillgaertner and John Bittmann of Dubuque, Hans 
Reimer Clausen, Theodore Guelich and Theodore Olshausen 
of Davenport, seem to have been the first to have conceived 
the plan and to have decided upon concerted aggressive action 
to compel the Republican leaders to declare themselves openly 
with respect to their attitude towards the "Two Year" Amend- 
ment. 

— 73 — 



The Germans of Illinois did not awaken to the seriousness 
of the act submitted in Massachusetts as soon as did the Ger- 
mans of Iowa. Upon its adoption on May 9, they became 
aroused and determined upon aggressive measures similar to 
those pursued in Iowa. Under the leadership of George 
Schneider of Chicago, Theodore Pfeiffer of Peoria and Dr. 
Canisius of Springfield they addressed interrogatories to all 
of the responsible Republican leaders of Illinois identical, or 
similar in content, with those addressed to the Congressional 
delegation of Iowa. The responses given in Illinois followed 
in the large the lines of the reply sent the Germans of Iowa 
by the junior national Senator of Iowa, James W. Grimes. 

All of the replies addressed to the Germans of Illinois 
were written upon the assumption, either frankly asserted, or 
by clear implication conceded, that the votes of the German 
Republicans were essential to the success of the national party 
in the approaching presidential canvass in 1860 and that Ger- 
man Republicans were among the staunchest anti-slavery forces 
within the party. 

Abraham Lincoln's reply to Dr. Theodore Canisius and 
confreres of Springfield was the only one of all those pub- 
lished which exhibited an appreciation of the correlative im- 
portance of the Nativistic elements, especially the fanatical 
and factional Americans and decadent Know-Nothings who 
counted for more in the Republican party and in the Anti- 
slavery forces than they did in the Democratic party. 

The two facts just named — the importance of the German 
vote and the equal importance of the Nativistic votes — ^consti- 
tuted the grand strategic facts that determined the course of 
events. IVIr. Lincoln clearly discerned them and future de- 
velopments demonstrated his superior foresight and preemi- 
nent prudence. These two major facts compelled the compro- 
mise in the national convention which resulted in a denuncia- 
tion of the "Two Year" Amendment in the national platform 
adopted at Chicago and in the nomination of the man who sent 
one of the replies to Dr. Canisius. The array of facts which 
justifies this assertion the present writer hopes sometime to 
display. 

— 74 — 



